As You Wish
by KissKissCrush
Summary: Alice's vision of a battle when the Volturi come to Forks to destroy Renesmee actually happens, leaving everyone dead except Aro and Bella. With the world they knew suddenly gone and no valid reasons left to be enemies, they embark on a bizarre adventure together which is part horror movie and part dark romantic comedy. [The first installment of the After the Battle series.]
1. Come Away With Me

******Disclaimer: I do not own Twilight nor any of its characters, settings or plot lines. I am not intending to pass off any part of the Twilight universe as my original work nor am I seeking to profit from this work. It is a fanwork intended only for the free (sometimes sexy) entertainment of other fans.**

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******Warning: This story contains content that is arguably in violation of the rating guidelines of this website. There are frequent occurrences of sex and violence but whether they are considered graphic is, I believe, subject to opinion. They are, for the most part, tame enough to appear in any R-rated movie. From this it should be apparent that this story is not intended for children. It also contains disturbing imagery and intense emotional and psychological situations that may be upsetting even to more mature readers.  
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******As usual for my stories, a full content warning for each chapter is located at the _END_ of the document to prevent spoilers for those not concerned about specific content. Just scroll until you see the bold text.**

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AN~I debated for a long time about putting this story up here for the reasons outlined above. This story is already partially archived on _Twilighted_ under a different name. However, as anyone with a story up over there knows, it takes a very, very long time to get a multi-chapter fic onto the site because of their validation system.

Also, this is where the readers are. When they go elsewhere, so shall I.

If you've read my AroBella story, **_Sunlight_**, I must warn you that_ this story is nothing like that one. _That is a fluffy romantic comedy, this is a romantic comedy written by a deranged lunatic. For the most part, the only thing to laugh at is my melodramatic writing style.

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**1**

It was quiet now. The air was still and heavy the way it is after a loud crack of thunder, the kind that leaves a crashing, silent violence behind which stays in your mind like an inaudible echo long after it's gone. The gargantuan sounds of vampires and werewolves killing each other had ended and this pressing, unnatural emptiness replaced them. Snow had begun falling again and it drifted in large, irregular shapes through the air, entirely too light and Christmasy for the scene they encountered as they landed.

Around me, the already fallen snow was littered with shattered bodies. The ones which hadn't been burned were in so many pieces it seemed impossible they could be repaired. I didn't even know if you _could_ fix a vampire once that had happened. It didn't matter. Only one of them mattered and he was gone. It had been that huge muscled beast of a vampire, Felix, that had taken him, my Edward, into the great chasm Benjamin had opened in the field.

Now there was nothing. The pit was gone, it sealed when its maker died, swiftly trapping the ones who had fallen in but weren't already dead, imprisoning them terribly down in the darkness, forever surrounded by the hot oppression of heated, subcutaneous stone, just warm enough to paralyze, to burn but not to kill.

I was sitting in the snow with my knees bent in front of me, my arms resting across their peaks, observing this aftermath with the placid neutrality you give to moderately impressive sunsets. A reaction to what had just occurred had not been invented so I was stuck in this unplottable place between shock and sorrow, immobile as those buried below me.

But I wasn't alone in this invisible prison. One other remained. I didn't know if it was cowardice that ensured his survival and he'd just come back onto the field after everyone else had died or fled or if he had killed someone I cared about to remain alive but he was there now, standing on the far side of the field, holding Jane's head. I could see bits of her blond hair, still tied with a black ribbon, floating lightly in the wind. He was whispering to her. His imposing figure, his clothes, which looked far too official and severe for the current setting, stood dark against the day which was pale in every direction with snow and fog. Jane was his favorite. He was probably telling her he could put her back together again. I'm sure he knew how. But that wouldn't help me, everyone I loved was destroyed. Except for Jacob and Renesmee and I hoped that they were very far away and would never return here. It would probably be good if I never saw them again actually, if I never had to tell them the details of this day, never had to name the dead. His pack members. Her father. It would be better for Renesmee to never have to feel responsible for the deaths of so many people. She was just a child. This was my fault.

No, this was _his_ fault. Anger flared at the sight of him, completely unharmed, standing in the snow casually amongst the corpses of all those who had died because of him. I didn't really know how strong he was. Or how strong I was as a newborn but I felt that even as a human, I could have ripped him apart at this moment. I started running towards him. I didn't even know what my actions would be when I reached him, making him feel pain was my only thought. He knew I was coming but he didn't react until the last second and that was only to set Jane's head carefully in the snow and then stand facing me with his hands in the air near his shoulders, a very placid surrender.

But I didn't want that. I wanted a fight so I could justify the violence I intended to inflict on him. I dived at him, knocking him back into the snow, the force of both of our indestructible bodies hitting the ground at that speed caused us to slide for several yards before we stopped.

I had both of his wrists pinned and I was holding him down with my legs. I don't know if I was actually restraining him or if he was just letting me do it. He didn't look afraid though and it enraged me. He should fear me. I could kill him.

"I want to kill you," I said. My voice came out strange and soft like the way you would whisper, "I love you," to someone in a place you didn't want other people to hear you.

His head had been tilted back when we stopped and now he brought his eyes level to mine and sighed, "Ah, and maybe you could. Do you want to try?" He didn't seem at all disturbed by the utterly inappropriate way my voice had sounded when I spoke. He seemed amused, rather. I squeezed his wrists and actually felt his skin give slightly through the fabric of his sleeves. But he didn't react to that either. His eyes didn't leave my face and his face didn't change.

I inhaled out of habit the way I used to do to calm myself even though it did nothing now except gather all of the smells around me out of the chill air: damp trees, burnt vampire flesh, mixed with snow, mixed with him. The exact way he had smelled in Volterra a year ago. I was beginning to believe I had imagined how overpowering it was but it was making me dizzy even now. With my increased sense of smell it had new layers and tones I hadn't known the first time. It was a rich, dark smell. Something I couldn't begin to name except to say it smelled like how I imagined sin itself would smell. Alluring and forbidden. Dangerous and expensive. My breath stuttered as I exhaled and I sagged a little, bringing our faces closer. Now he was looking at me warily, confused by the odd shift in my behavior. I could have continued in my rage if I had only held my fucking breath. I felt control spin away from me, throwing bright sparks, like a ground firework skidding over the pavement of a parking lot.

I knew the fact that he couldn't read my thoughts was disturbing and fascinating to him. The way it had been to Edward. I am the only real mystery he has encountered in a few thousand years. I didn't even know how old he really was but Edward had said the Volturi had been around that long at least.

So I am a mystery. And he is . . . something. He terrifies me, yes, but that day in Volterra when I stepped forward to let him try to read my mind, close enough to smell him with my human senses, I had felt a vibrant jolt shoot through me from our joined hands. His skin was cold like Edward's but different, softer, like some alien stone with velvet on its surface. He had bowed his head over our hands while I stood trying not to recoil as I stared at his thick, dark hair. Sleek and tamed, not like Edward's at all. Then he looked up at me, his startling crimson eyes inspecting my face and I waited. He looked unsettled and a little concerned. He dropped my hand and stepped away and I was embarrassed to find that I had liked his touch as soon as it was gone. I remember standing there a little stupidly, staring at him, with my hand hanging empty in the air before Alice pulled me back. I wondered if someone was controlling my feelings like Jasper did but I didn't know why they would be making me feel this way toward Aro. Unless it was to trick me into staying there. But that didn't feel right, the attraction wasn't that strong, I still wanted desperately to leave with Edward and Alice.

And he decided to let us. Then right before he had Felix release Edward, he stepped close again and leaned in to say my name, his face inches from my own, his cold fingertips just ghosting the side of my face. I felt myself blush hotly and knew he must have felt the slight increase in warmth under my skin as the excess blood heated my cheek. Even not being able to read my mind, he had to know the effect he had had on me, my face as transparent as my mind was opaque. I felt I looked indecent standing there with my mouth just open and my eyes closed while he whispered my name to me in his unplaceable accent. I was grateful he was between Edward and I because I knew I looked very much like I was simply waiting for him to kiss me. This was what classic vampire legends were based on I knew now. Incomprehensibly old beings with alluring scents and sounds that darkly and easily seduce young girls with only a touch, only a whisper. And take them swiftly down to Hell.

Right now, he had his head to one side, surveying me calmly, as if we had just paused a conversation about something benign and he was waiting for me to answer an ordinary question, not at all like I was straddling him on the ground in the middle of a battlefield where all of our friends just died and he was asking me, rather sweetly, if I was going to attempt to murder him.

"I don't know," I said finally, looking away.

"Truly? Everyone you know appears to be gone, and I am the cause. I can't think of any reason why you wouldn't kill me if you could, Isabella Cullen," he said. But it didn't sound cruel. His ability to appear kind and welcoming was unnerving. It made you feel like you could trust him when instinct screamed out the insanity of trusting this long inhuman creature.

But he was the only vampire in the world I knew now. This realization had begun while I was running and was part of the reason why I grabbed at his arms when we fell and not his eyes. With my heart already broken eternally, what did it matter if Aro lived? He had no one either.

"I don't know anyone else," I said, my voice was weak and flat.

"That is unfortunate," he said, sympathetically.

"But I couldn't kill you anyway."

He narrowed his eyes for a second. Maybe trying to decide if I was stupid or trying to fool him.

"While I would, of course, prefer that you didn't, may I ask why?"

I took a breath. A terrible idea a second time as his scent had in no way lessened. Then I concentrated and expanded my shield to surround us both. He gasped as the air around us was filled with transparent, shivering rainbows.

"Bella," he said but he wasn't looking at me, and I was certain he was saying the shield was beautiful, not saying my name.

I shifted my right index finger up over his sleeve and placed my fingertip on his wrist. I let a thin flow of memories, carefully selected, go out. I had been practicing this a lot to show to Edward. I never got the chance. Now I never would. It seemed wrong to be sharing this ability for the first time with someone else. It was such an intimate act that the things I was about to show him seemed like less of a betrayal in comparison. But I needed an ally, I needed _him_ not to kill _me_.

He gasped again, higher, a smile on his open mouth, his eyes wide as I showed him us meeting in that weird throne room:

_My heart was still beating too fast from my run though the square as we followed Jane through those huge, ornate doors and it lurched suddenly with shock, and started beating even faster when I saw him as he stepped down from the dais and started toward us, smiling too cheerfully for the occasion as I understood it. I had seen him before, in the painting in Carlisle's office. I had thought the artist was being fanciful in the way they'd depicted him, but he was there, looking exactly as he did in a painting that was hundreds of years old. His face was nothing short of terrifying even though, like all vampires, his skin was perfect and his features even and refined. He reached us and took Edward's hand, the same hand I was holding. Our fingers brushed and I gasped. The smell of him overwhelmed me and I was barely listening as he and Edward talked. I only looked at him directly when he said my name and the bubble of terror surrounding me broke as we made eye contact for the first time. He was still scary but now I was drawn to him instead of repelled. My skin tightened pleasantly all over my body when he politely requested permission to hear my thoughts. Agreeing meant inadvertently confessing to him how he was affecting me. I stepped forward and gave him my hand. _

Then me on a plane, flying away from Italy:

_My fingers were covering my lips while an unbidden, unwanted image of us in the throne room appeared in my mind. Not a memory from that day but something else. A fantasy. A spell. We were just kissing at first and then he drew me closer and his hand slid down to touch me, to press elegant fingers against me gently while I made a soft whining noise and held onto him, my hands making fists on the lapels of his jacket and my head tilted back obscenely, my mouth open slightly. Everyone was watching and I didn't even care._

Now my bedroom in Forks, weeks later:

_I woke up suddenly from a dream about him where he had caught me down a dark stone hallway and was whispering in my ear, his cool breath beating a soft tattoo against the side of my face. His hands were cupping my ribcage in a way that made me aware that he could crush me without effort. I was naked and wearing his Volturi crest around my neck. _

Then the part I had to force myself to let him see:

_Me touching myself in the darkness, his name, not Edward's, falling quietly from my lips at the end, imagining my hands were his like in my fantasy on the plane. And the guilt and disgust that rocked me afterwards when Edward appeared at my window ten minutes later._

His face had grown increasingly astonished as each memory appeared. Now in response to this last one he closed his mouth, a new, strange expression of his face. It almost looked like fear.

I let one more memory through:

_Us facing each other on the battlefield. Before he focused on Renesmee, his gaze had come to my face and the reaction of my newborn vampire body was horrifying to me. I was glaring at him openly but really I wanted to leap on him, tear at his clothes and taste his skin. His eyes slid obviously down my body and then flicked back up to my face. Lust raked through me and I realized, sickeningly, that if I had met him alone, I might have done it. _

I moved my finger and let my shield retract.

"I love Edward," I said. My voice sounded like I had a hole in my windpipe. "But that's why I can't kill you. I thought I could. But it would be . . . sick."

"You're not going to kill me . . . because you want me?" he asked, his tone completely flabbergasted.

"No. I don't want you. I _hate_ you."

"But you still want to_ fuck _me . . ._"_ He sounded bizarrely amused and a little smug even.

I released his left hand and slapped him as hard as I could across the face. He caught me by the back of the neck, his powerful hand gripping the base of my skull. He forced my head down until I was an inch from him, his red eyes swept slowly over my face and he inhaled deeply, then, instead of pulling me down further he lifted his own head to vanish the space between us, pressing his ancient lips to mine in an unanticipated and oddly reverent kiss.

My body reacted wantonly and without direction from me. My legs tightened around him, my hips bucked, shocking me with their unpremeditated forwardness. My movement allowed me to feel that the memories I had shared had had a predictable effect on him. At least, predictable for any other man. I hadn't even been sure if he was capable of or interested in physicality. But he obviously was and he was still kissing me, to which I was responding shamelessly because an imaginary heat had erupted in me as soon as his lips touched mine. It burned away everything and I felt it all fall away and for a moment I was free of the horrible reality of the battle, even while its evidence lay still and terrible on the snow all around us where we were kissing with seemingly cruel indifference to the aftermath of my whole life ending.

He had somehow been dominating the situation even while I was the one still holding him to the ground. He completely possessed me with only his mouth and I didn't even fight it, the freedom from pain was so sweet and absolute.

He flipped us quite suddenly. He could have done it at any time I realized when I felt a small measure of his strength as he lifted and pulled me under him. He was laying on top of me, between my legs, his long, red-lined cloak covering us like a blanket we didn't need even in the snow. There was snow clinging to his hair, I could feel it under my fingers, not melting because neither of us was warm enough even to melt something as delicate as a snowflake. Frozen monsters, equally cold. Inside and out. I released his other wrist and slid my hand up to interlock our fingers, the only part of our flesh touching except for our mouths.

"What now, Isabella?" he asked softly, pulling away from our kiss, interlacing the fingers of our our other hands.

I shook my head. I couldn't speak. I wrapped my legs around him, lifting my hips. I wanted more. I wanted to feel that perfect nothingness from our kiss again. I would do anything to capture it. To keep it. But not here. I managed to somehow convey that we should go somewhere else. I don't even remember how but in a moment we were flying through the woods, him holding me, my legs still wrapped around his body. He stopped in a clearing, slowing down before backing me up until my spine hit a tree.

"And now?" he asked, moving his hips against me slightly.

I moaned and the sound made me feel disgusting. This was wrong after everything that had just happened. Wrong anyway, at any time. The battle not a half an hour over and us in the woods, wrapped in an unholy embrace. Made so much worse because in many ways it was _our_ battle, his and mine, and now everyone was dead but us, because of us, and _this_ is how we were mourning them. By trying to forget they ever existed. At least for me it was that way. I didn't care why he was doing it.

And I couldn't deny that I wanted him, even beyond my current, selfish need, not after I had shown him what I did, not after I kissed him back the way I had just now. I didn't want to say it, I couldn't make myself consent to this verbally. I responded to his question by grabbing the top of his cloak and tearing it away from his back. He smiled slightly and bent his head to my neck. His lips on my skin made that wonderful, strange heat erupt again, the source of which wasn't blood rising. A trick of my mind as it scrambled madly to escape from the agony threatening to engulf and destroy me.

The intimacy I had shared with Edward had been exquisite and powerful in its own way but this was frightening in its intensity. The taboo of it made me react shamefully as I held onto him with one hand on the nape of his neck, tucked against his skin under his hair and the other pulling at the small of his back, pressing him closer even though he was already crushing me to the tree behind me. He was moving against me just barely but I felt like I would finish before we ever got to anything else. He seemed to know this somehow and moved a little faster. My fingers dug into his neck.

"Do you want me to stop?" he asked quietly.

"No!" I was too overstimulated to even feel embarrassed by my open desperation for him.

"I've never done this with anyone whose mind I couldn't hear," he said and this had never honestly occurred to me. It must be strange. "So I need you to tell me if you don't like something."

I just nodded. It was odd having this exchange given our circumstances. Why should he care? I realized how much I didn't know about him. Almost everything. I stepped hard on the idea that he might have feelings. I preferred that he be an ancient, unknowable monster because it justified using him like I was while I despised him and he knew it.

"I seem to be doing okay so far," he said next to my cheek. I was sure my body would find blood enough somewhere to blush at this. I didn't know if he wanted me to flatter him but I hardly needed to because in a few moments I had tensed in response to his movements, my hands tightening on him, pressing myself against him as I came, both us still fully clothed.

He held me silently for a minute before asking me if I wanted to continue. It made me uncomfortable that he was asking me that. Selflessness didn't factor into my concept of him. And it certainly wasn't what I wanted right now.

I nodded without looking at him. He pushed the skirt of my short dress up with his slender, pale hands and slipped his fingers into the top of my tights. He pulled with what looked like casual force but they shredded in his hands easily. He tore away the entire top of them leaving behind what were basically thigh high stockings with ragged, fraying tops rising out of my tall boots. His hands connected with the bare skin of my legs and I groaned unconsciously, loudly. He laughed through his nose, smiling, amused by my enthusiastic reaction. He certainly didn't need to hear my thoughts with the way I was acting.

I reached for his chest and pulled at the front of his tunic. The gold buttons flew away and I yanked the fabric back and away from him, until he pulled his arms free. Underneath he wore a white, buttoned shirt, the top button undone already. It was instantly humanizing, surreal. His gold Volturi crest still hung from his neck. I grabbed the pendant in my fist and yanked. I felt the chain snap and I threw it away into the trees viciously.

He caught my hands before I could do more, pinning them both with a one of his hands above me. He placed his other hand at my throat, his thumb ran my jawline, before traveling down over my collarbone and between my breasts, he continued down to my stomach where he pressed the pad of his thumb into my navel gently, momentarily before sliding his hand around to cup my waist. He took the fabric of my dress in his fist and this time it wasn't gentle like with my tights. He tugged sharply, his teeth visible for a second and the entire dress, which had been a thin knit, tore away cleanly leaving me naked by almost any public standard. My underwear remained. I hadn't been wearing a bra. He looked down, his eyes falling to the necklace. _His_ necklace. The one he sent me after I became a vampire. Its large, heavy stone hung down in the center of my chest, over my still heart. He didn't comment on its presence but he paused and looked at me carefully for a moment, his red eyes examining my face like he could extract some kind of clarifying information about why I had worn it today from the soft planes of my features. He wouldn't find an answer because there wasn't one. Because even I didn't know why I had put it on. Or why I had hidden it under my dress after.

He put his fingers into the top of my underwear but didn't tear them. He instead came in to kiss me again. It was more passionate now, a little more demanding. His mouth tasted rich and dark. Like the way he smelled, like sin. My fingers were on his chest and they tightened on his shirt, tearing it without meaning to when he brought his lips to right under my ear and began to whisper things, mostly in Italian, that I couldn't understand. Except my name, all the syllables drawn out, exaggerated, breathy. I tore at his shirt for real then and pushed it off his shoulders where it fell on top of my own ruined clothes. I went quickly to his belt, undoing it so that the rest of his cloak fell away. He was wearing black pants underneath. The color made the chalkiness of his newly revealed skin more startling. Beautiful in the light of this sad, grey day.

In a slow moment where I forgot what this was supposed to be, I placed my palm flat in the middle of his chest, where his heart would have been if he were alive. He sucked in air through his teeth and closed his eyes. He opened them a moment later and tore my underwear away roughly, encountering me messily as I reached for the closure of his pants. Working around each other, desperation taking over now until finally, terribly, wrongly, perfectly, wonderfully we were naked together except for my boots and the ragged remains of my tights. He lifted me a little so that he was positioned to slide into me.

"Remember that you must tell me if I do something wrong, Isabella," he said, paused at this torturous juncture.

'_Please, don't say my name like that. Don't say it at all.'_

"Just fuck me," I said, not looking at him, shocked at my own vulgarity. "Don't talk anymore."

He breathed out heavily and trust upward until our hips met, only prevented from crawling into each other, consuming each other, by our unbreakable bones.

He went slow at first, kissing me languidly and then he took my permission, my request and pulling my legs up around him more securely, thrust into me harder. The tree behind me creaked but I pulled at him, silently begging him not to stop, pushing my hips out to meet him. And for a little while, there was nothing, like it had been when we kissed that first time. It was perfect. Just beautiful emptiness and the elegant swirling of my body's strange processes as I raced toward my second climax.

"Tell me before you come this time," he said, his breathing was slightly shaky. I had done that, made him lose control a little bit. It was almost too much and after he spoke I was a lot closer than I had been before. I managed to nod. He gripped me tighter, his pace even and untiring and after another minute I knew it was going to be over too soon. I didn't want it to stop. I fought to cling to him, to cling to the sweet, obliterating darkness we shared, wanting to stay here lost, not remembering. Finally I told him in a gasp when I was close and he said, "Let me hear it." I obeyed this quiet request without thought, my cry escaping into the crisp air, loud and sharp and surely audible for miles around.

He wasn't loud and I stared in amazement at his face as he finished, his frightening eyes half shut, his mouth open slightly. He gasped before thrusting into me once more and then freezing there, his lips still parted so I could see the dark, wet interior of his mouth within. He held me against him, his breath shuddering, his head came forward and he buried his face in my neck, pressing a soft, full kiss on my absent pulse point.

We stayed that way for a long time. Longer than any human could have. I didn't want to leave. I had too many awful things to face. I didn't know what his motivation was. He could probably go back, save some of his friends. He could return home, still be like he was, the tyrannical king of all vampires, he was still Aro of the Volturi. I was nothing. Had nothing.

At last he released me, leaving me gently, but still it felt awful. I had to think about it now. The end of our illicit coupling was the beginning of reality. We stood there naked but I didn't feel shame, I only felt numb but with a terrible, dizzying, red pain coming in at the edges.

"What will you do now?" he asked kindly.

"I don't know," I said. "Everyone is gone, I checked. I have nowhere to go."

Smoothly he said, "You could come to Italy. Your special gift would be welcomed there . . . "

"Still recruiting after all of that?" I said bitterly.

"What else should I do?"

"You don't have to go back either," I said, even to me it sounded crazy. "We could burn the field, let everyone think we both died. Start over somehow." I was rambling, creating the storyline of a bad TV show. Implausible and ridiculous, but I couldn't stop myself. I so afraid to be alone that I was making an alliance with the person who made me that way.

"You'd run away with your enemy? Why?"

"What are my other choices?" I said, not even caring how rude it sounded.

"I've been the head of the Volturi for more than two thousand years. What would you have me do now, little vampire?" He sounded intensely curious.

"Be a new person. We could get resources from the Cullen's house, start over easily," I said. I sounded like I had a plan but I was just making things up wildly. I couldn't tell what he was thinking. His face was a porcelain mask. "You could always go back to Volterra later, make some excuse . . . " I added quickly. I was suddenly desperate to have him say yes and I didn't care who he was I just didn't want to do this by myself. "A year," I said finally and then waited. It was an arbitrary timeframe but I was sure I'd know what to do by then.

He stared at me for a long time, baffled, before he finally said, "A year. I think you could show me this world as I have not yet seen it, Isabella. And since you won't show me in your mind, I am sure, you'll have to show me in person. So, for a year, I am at your command."

Command. Aro. This had an interesting effect on me. I felt rich and capable suddenly. I could do this. We could. I would run away with the only person who knew I was alive. A man who should have been my enemy, _was_ my enemy, who I had just slept with inadvisably in the forest a mile from my human home.

I took his hand and led him toward the Cullen's, darting through the trees naked, leaving our old clothes behind, along with our old selves, we arrived in the clearing of their front yard, our faces bright, mirroring each others sudden madness, ready to leap.

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END NOTES: Okay. So in this story, I tried to make it as canon-compliant as possible because I am obsessed with canon-compliant AroBella shipping. I use a mixture of book and movie canon. Whichever suits my storyline best. I will try to point out where I change things when I do it. There are minor things in this chapter. Like Bella is not wearing that outfit on the day of the battle. It is the one she is wearing when Charlie comes to see her at the Cullen's after her change.

She _is_ wearing the necklace in the book and they even have this weird flirty conversation about it where he's like, "_Hiiiiii, Bella_, I see you got my present," and she goes, "Oh yeah, it's super pretty. I totally wear it every day of my life including when it's utterly impractical because I might be getting into a massive vampire fight. Thx. Sorry I never wrote back." And he's like, "Oh, it's cool, it's just this ridiculously priceless ancient artifact I've been hoarding for centuries that I decided to give you even though we've only met once because I knew you were going to be a sexy vampire and I was totally right, _ur rly hawt! _So, do you want to come home with me? No? How about if I kill your husband? Still no huh? That's too bad. Did you hear that part where I said I think you're pretty? I said it a few times . . . just wanted to make sure you knew . . ." It _happens._ Look it up.

For those who have read _Sunlight_, you are going to see parallels in this story regarding their relationship. While that is unavoidable in any AroBella fic, it was intentional in these ones as _Sunlight_ was written for the specific purpose of having a "clean" story to post on this site and is, in some important ways, the clean, light, happy version of this story.

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**CONTENT GUIDE: A non-graphic but descriptive sexual encounter, mention of female masturbation, profanity, profanity used to describe sex.  
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	2. Someone Who Knows My Name

******Disclaimer: I do not own Twilight nor any of its characters, settings or plot lines. I am not intending to pass off any part of the Twilight universe as my original work nor am I seeking to profit from this work. It is a fanwork intended only for the free (sometimes sexy) entertainment of other fans.**

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AN~So, this was my first AroBella fic and I write them both very differently now so Bella's first person narrative voice may shift a bit in the following chapters as I edit them.** This is a complete story **already I should say. I've taken to never posting anything without an existing ending even if it's still a draft. The time between chapters is me editing in a sweaty, terrified mania surrounded by empty jars of nacho cheese and various items sprayed with Twilight perfume.

Holy shit, I am creepy.

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**2  
**

Basically, we were looting. Or he was. I had my own things, in the little house Edward and I had shared for so short a time. I didn't invite him there; I was going to say goodbye. But I realized quickly what a terrible idea it was to go there alone and I regretted it immediately as the smells and textures of our rooms enveloped me in the cloying embrace of lost happiness. I dressed in a blur and then tore through the house grabbing my things so I could leave as fast as possible and never, ever go back. I packed a fraction of the least extravagant clothing items Alice had put in my closet into a small bag and sped through the trees back to the main house where I had left Aro. I felt as though I were being chased through the woods by angry, malevolent specters intent on my demise, on destroying me for my sins, both recent and past.

When I found him he was standing on the deck at the back of the house, staring blankly into the trees. I paused, unsure if I should approach him; the moment looked private. But he turned around just as I was about to back away into the house again. I just stopped a surprised gasp at the way he was dressed and instead ended up with what I could feel was a really weird look on my face, frozen between two expressions as I took in all the details of his clothing. He looked down at himself under my scrutiny.

"Carlisle dresses like a grandfather," he said, as though to explain his outfit.

They were obviously Jasper's clothes. It wasn't that he'd done badly but that his outfit was so ridiculously modern I wondered if he'd looked in a magazine before putting it together. He was wearing dark jeans and a fitted black jacket over a striped sweater. The jeans were odd enough by themselves to justify my shock but the most bizarre element to this outfit by far were the black Converse. I wasn't even sure where he'd gotten them because I hadn't seen any of the Cullens ever wearing Converse. They looked new, so maybe that was why. I forced myself not to look down at my feet and draw attention to my own filthy grey pair that I'd had since before I moved to Forks. I didn't know why I'd put them on today. I guess they were comforting.

Both times I'd seen him, he'd been dressed drastically different and then again in the painting in Carlisle's office so I couldn't say if the clothes _were_ really that strange for him. It was more that they were so casual, I think. He had an aura of royalty about him and they made him seem a little too accessible for what I was comfortable with right then.

But I knew that it wasn't that he looked out of place that was making me uncomfortable and honestly a little lightheaded, it was because he looked . . . _attractive_ like this, almost normal. I had never honestly thought about whether he was good-looking or not. My obsession with him wasn't about physical attraction. It was an unexpected development that made me seriously doubt the genius of my idiotic plan. Maybe I could get him to shave his head. That would ugly him up for sure.

He fidgeted and I realized I had been just staring at him with my mouth slightly open for an awkwardly long moment. I shook myself out of it and sputtered some mostly intelligible thing about how he looked fine and we would blend in easily and how I needed to go set myself on fire. Except for the fire part. I managed to leave that out.

His hair was no longer disheveled the way it had been after our run. It was brushed smooth and lay in a sleek, dark sheet over his shoulders, the sides pulled back and held with a small black hair tie. There was still something about him which didn't look quite civilized, though. I realized that even in modern clothing, he would be startling wherever we went. But if he were a little less pale and he didn't stand so still or move so fluidly when he did move, he could really blend in in any century readily enough. His features almost seemed to morph dramatically depending on his mood.

"Strange day," he remarked, looking back out at the trees again.

"That's—yeah. It certainly wasn't what I expected out of today," I said.

"What did you expect?"

"I expected my family to not be dead," I said bluntly.

"Me too." He picked at a splinter on the railing of the porch in a very human way.

I hadn't ever thought of the Volturi as his family before but I supposed they were. Marcus and Caius his brothers, Jane and Alec as good as his children. _Terrifying_, monstrous children but it was obvious how much he cared about them if you saw them together. I wasn't the only one who had lost important people today. I had just assumed he was heartless, I guess, that he only mourned his dead friends for their lost powers, but now that seemed extremely childish. Even on my side he wasn't likely indifferent to the deaths which had occurred. I recalled that in Volterra that day he had been genuinely happy to hear that Carlisle and his family were well when he saw the evidence in Edward's thoughts. Nearly everyone who died today mattered to him in some way. He knew a lot of our witnesses and, it seemed, had known them for a long time. It was probably a bit like if someone had murdered everyone I knew at my high school. Maybe I wasn't super close to all of them but it would be deeply disturbing nonetheless. It was disorienting to think that his tragedy might actually be bigger than my own. My closest friend and my daughter were still alive, as well as my parents and my human friends even if I couldn't see them. As far away as they all were, they lived.

"I'm sorry," I said quietly.

"You _are_ strange, Isabella. Sorry for me, the cause of all your significant suffering . . . "

I shrugged. "Do you want to take more clothes or buy new ones later?"

"New, I think," he said, lifting the corner of the jacket and surveying the fabric. "Not that dear Jasper didn't have lovely taste. These just smell . . . like someone else, you know."

"Yeah. All of mine are new . . . so that's nice," I said pointlessly. I'm sure he did not care about my clothing.

"And very lovely as well," he said courteously with that small, sweet, tricky smile that made you think he was just so harmless.

It would take me a while to get used to someone with refined manners. I was so rough in life and even as a vampire, my manner was slightly crude. Still sleeker than any human but downright goofy next to him.

"Well. Where are we going then?" he asked. His voice was excited now.

"I don't really know," I admitted, now feeling stupid that I had begged him to stay with me and didn't even have any idea what we were going to do. "I think we could go to Seattle for a few days. A lot of weird people live there so we might get away with walking around with your eyes even . . . at least at night." I had contact lenses in my bag but I didn't know how into wearing those he'd be.

"Sounds lovely," he said serenely.

I wondered if he was going to just agree with everything I said. I hoped so for now at least because this next part wouldn't be fun for either of us.

"We have to go back to the field first . . ." I started.

"Yes," he said quietly. Now he looked unhappy. There were still friends of his technically alive back there.

"Are we going to try to, uh, save anyone?" I didn't know how else to ask if we were going to go back and burned a lot of people to death.

"No," he stated firmly. "It would be more merciful to let them die. Healing takes a long time and is very painful. And the vampire is incapacitated throughout if it's the head. If we were closer to Volterra, I might consider . . . taking some. But there would be no way to transport them as they are. Anyway, shall we?" He was smiling again now but it looked a little plastic giving him the appearance of a very unsettling mannequin. Not that there was any such thing as a not-unsettling mannequin. It was just that usually they didn't move . . . or whistle.

It was a few minutes before I followed him. I had to breathe in the house before I said goodbye. I walked through every room and touched every significant surface, taking a few small items with me from everyone.

Back outside, I heard him in the trees, just left of where I was headed. I veered off from my trajectory toward the field, coming out of the trees in the same small clearing we were in earlier. He had gathered our ruined clothing. Everything was in a neat pile at the base of the tree we had used. He was looking around in the underbrush for something.

"Ah," he said finally and lifted his Volturi crest out of a prickly-looking bush. He observed the ruined chain mildly. Half of the links were warped like it was melted in a fire. "Would you like to finish it off?" he asked, offering it to me in a friendly way.

After nearly two years of Edward's sullenness, Aro's oddly sunshiny disposition was jarring. And it irritated me that he didn't seem as miserable as I was. I ignored him, grabbed the pile of clothing and started off for the field without looking back.

He skidded out of the tree line onto the snow seconds after me. He didn't have the necklace in his hand anymore. I didn't know what he'd done with it and I didn't care.

We looked around, both of us solemn suddenly. The place looked more horrible now after walking away and coming back. Body parts, even not surrounded by blood and guts, were unpleasant to see strewn all over the place. A few of the nomads were sort of alive, though most in many pieces. Their eyes looked at me with anger and also relief as I brought the torch down on them. I burned everyone, even the remaining guard and the unfortunate witnesses who had gotten caught up in this mess. I stopped at Jane when we came to her and handed the ornate silver torch to Aro. He took Jane's head and placed it at the top of her body, completing her. She looked shocked and furious when she saw him and me, saw the flames, and knew she was going to die for real.

"It's better this way, my sweet Jane. You do not know how awful it would be for you," he said sweetly, tucking her tangled hair away from her face. He kissed her forehead and then stood before applying the flame.

The field was empty now, little piles of ash were here and there but most had already been covered by the new snow. All evidence of this titanic event would be gone soon. I had walked away while Aro burned Jane, watching him sideways. He turned to me, still holding the torch.

"I don't suppose this will fit in, in your Seattle?" he asked, holding it up.

Was that a joke?

"Um, no. We could bury it?" I suggested, not sure what else to do.

"Yes, that's nice. Symbolic even. Burying the torch . . ."

_'Burying our past,'_ I thought, as we stood together, silent, watching the snow wrap the dark evidence of what had happened this day in its, soft, cold embrace.

Like our own skin, turning what was once alive into a memory, immortalized in ice.

* * *

Ten minutes later we were running through the trees again. I knew which direction to go and he was following me but weaving a bit, bouncing off of trees and circling me, laughing madly. He was obviously enjoying himself and I felt surprised to feel myself smiling a little. His enthusiasm was infectious.

I halted at the edge of the trees; he came to a graceful stop next to me, grinning. There was probably very little running around in the forest back in Italy. I wondered what he did all day. Now was not the moment to ask. We were at our last stop in Forks.

My truck was in front of Charlie's house still. The apocalyptic ache I was trying very hard to push down until later threatened like a black cloud carrying some awful, poisonous rain I didn't want to get caught in. I closed my eyes, breathing in and out deliberately a few times. I could smell everything, down to the little bit of oil I had spilled the last time I had refilled the reservoir on my truck.

"Your home?" he asked. "Well, it's . . . quaint, isn't it?"

Even his old world politeness couldn't make Charlie's battered white house anything special.

"I was born here," I said, only just remembering that myself.

"I don't have any idea where I was born," he said thoughtfully. "It was a while ago now."

I raised my eyebrows. _Understate much?_

"Would you like me to wait outside for you?" he offered politely.

"No," I said immediately. I did not want to be alone. Not after what happened at my house a few minutes ago. If I went in there alone, I might lose my composure. I needed him to anchor me. The ridiculousness of having him with me at all was making this whole thing seem like a dream and that was working really well. Although this wasn't anything like my usual dreams about him. I shook that thought away and dashed to the back porch.

The door wasn't locked. No point here in Forks, and no one would break into Charlie's house anyway. When it had closed behind us and the smell of the house was suddenly trapped inside with me I nearly turned around and fled without doing anything. I grabbed Aro's sleeve to steady myself and he patted my hand kindly. He seemed like the most sympathetic person in the world. But I had seen his brutality today and I would keep reminding myself of it. Especially after what had happened in the grove back by the field. Already that seemed distant though. Impossible that we should have even kissed, let alone our frenzied, grief-drunk fucking.

I let go of him and went through into the living room. He was looking around, fascinated.

"I've seen so many families' homes, you know, in their memories, but I've really never been inside of one." He was looking at the pictures on the walls. Charlie had taken down the wedding photo of him and Renee finally but put nothing up in its place. It left a dark square on the wall where the memory, encased in a frame, had protected the wood from fading even when the photograph did, when Renee's love for Charlie did. There were mostly pictures of me I realized and it struck me as it never had before: I was Charlie's world. And I would be gone soon. I couldn't even say goodbye. He would never know what happened to me. I was a ghost.

Aro was smiling at my baby pictures and one of me drinking from a hose in the backyard when I was six and I hurried him away, not thinking about how much worse it would be for him to be standing in my old bedroom until we were there.

There were still a few boxes but I ignored them and went straight to my desk. I took down a couple of pictures from above it. Pictures of my friends from school. Pictures of all the Cullens. A large black and white one of Edward. I touched his face for a moment before slipping them all into my bag. I took a small journal out of a silly fake compartment in the desk and zipped the bag shut after laying it on top of the photos. When I turned he was looking right at me, his head tilted to the side slightly. Most people would probably have pretended to be busy but I guess social cues and norms beyond a certain set of manners were probably a bit foreign to him. He most likely wasn't in very many situations where he was a guest.

"Your room is lovely," he said and this sounded sincere. "You have a lot of books . . ."

I glanced around, trying to see it like a stranger would. It was cozy. The books he was referring to were stacked and stuffed into about every space available, including on the floor under my bed. A little string of white Christmas lights in the corner glowed weakly in the daylight. I reached to unplug them, glad I had come back and Charlie's house hadn't burned down in his absence. Although, maybe they didn't get hot enough for that. Either way, electricity.

"I'll miss it," I said simply, touching the light purple paint on the wall over the outlet. "It's been mine all my life. But I guess that was when I was human . . . it's not mine now."

When I stood up from unplugging the string of lights he was right in front of me. I jumped a little at his sudden proximity. I could still smell him even over the scent of Jasper on the clothes he was wearing. I held my breath and turned my head.

He brushed the side of my face with his fingertips, so like that first day we met. Really, this was still only the second day we had known each other. Time had stopped really meaning anything when I had become a vampire and I only noticed it passing when I observed the humans in my life, Renesmee mostly, so it seemed like I had known him longer. His calm, smooth manner pulled you in. Also, I had thought about him almost every day since leaving Volterra. At first because of my bizarre crush. And then when I heard they were coming for my daughter and my fascination turned to fear. Really, he had been haunting me for more than a year. Even in my sleep, his image, voice and scent had invaded my mind. And now he was the only thing to survive the destruction that had swooped down upon me. I was possessed. I would never be free.

I was about to say we should go, and had started to reach for my bag on the desk when he caught my face with both of his hands and kissed me. It was different from before, softer. I wanted to give in to it and I wanted to push him off of me violently. Swear at him. Tell him to just go back to Volterra if he thought that was how things were going to be with us.

But I didn't. After a moment I dropped my hand where it was hovering over the strap on the bag and I fell into him, kissing him back, feeling the sweet anesthesia of a his touch creep through me like a quick-moving frost, branching out over my skin, my heart, my tired mind.

He held me to him with one hand on the small of my back and—_oh, God_. We should stop kissing. We should get out of Charlie's house. I knew he wouldn't be back for days but I still felt like we would be caught. Like this house was full of the ghosts of everyone who had died today and they were watching us in shock and disgust as we defiled their sacrifice with our inconceivable and poorly-timed lust.

But I didn't stop. I shoved him against the wall, pressing myself to him, on my toes to kiss him. I put my hands into his hair, it was soft and thick and released more of his scent into the air. I breathed in greedily and moaned against his lips. He started to move me toward my old bed—it was still made—but I stopped him. Not there. Where Edward had stayed with me so many nights. I wouldn't betray him completely by desecrating even our memories. He changed direction to the floor by the window.

We didn't tear our clothes this time. We undressed carefully, kissing between every piece removed, drowning exquisitely in the exciting rush of the forbidden, like we had last time only now in quiet softness instead of the angry heat of an hour ago.

When we were both naked he paused and looked down at me with those unreadable red eyes for a moment before speaking. "I cannot apologize for what has happened, you know. I came to do what I thought was right. You never met the immortal children. They were terrible and dangerous and it was absolutely necessary to destroy them to save our kind from discovery and extinction. I did what I had to. It's what I've always done. To keep us safe."

It was the most he had said at once since I tackled him in the snow. I closed my eyes. I didn't want or expect him to apologize but I didn't want to hear pathetic excuses either. Or listen to him pretend he didn't have selfish motives for coming to Forks and hadn't just been waiting for a reason.

"Don't," I said. My throat was aching with tears I didn't have any more. "You wanted something that didn't belong to you. Don't lie to me after what you did."

"You were one of those things I wanted, you know," he said carefully.

"I know." He was more arrogant and delusional than I previously believed if he thought that made it better.

"But I'll admit I hadn't anticipated anything like this at the time," he said, touching my bare shoulder and sounding completely baffled momentarily. "Do you think maybe—"

"Please stop talking," I said. Just _shut up and fuck me._ Maybe I should have a t-shirt made so I didn't have to keep saying it.

I pulled him down and kissed him. He couldn't talk if he had my tongue in his mouth. I did not want to hear anything he may have been about to say next. Nothing that would help us could possibly have followed those words.

He was excellent at honoring this request though and mutely explored my body with his hands and mouth before finally slipping inside of me in a slow, smooth stroke. I groaned, my head tilting back on the pale carpet. I think the sound I made contained his name but he didn't notice or pretended not to.

It was slow but with an atmosphere of rough desperation, our caresses a little too hard, our kissing almost like an argument, but with teeth instead of angry words scattered throughout. I thought only of the moment, of the sensation of our immortal bodies together, encased in oblivion, the forgetting so absolute I couldn't even recall my own face let alone that of any of my dead loved ones.

He might as well have been able to read my thoughts he seemed to understand my body cues so well, changing his pace at the smallest indication from me. His thrusting was still slow but harder and closer together. His name may have been obscured in another sound earlier but was obvious in my cries as I climaxed this time. I said it more than once, like a secret that was being drawn out of me after days of interrogation. It was a confession. An admission of my biggest crime. My worst sin. My best one. My favorite.

I vaguely registered a small, odd sound from him when I said his name. But when he followed me a minute later he was again silent like the first time. Only his breathing changed, brushing the skin on my neck in a soft, repeating pattern, like a message in an invisible, intangible code I didn't know.

"We shouldn't keep doing this," I said after a long silence. My breath whispered out ironically against his cheek where it was tucked comfortably next to my own on my shoulder. While his body still covered mine, while he was still _inside of me_, I was trying to tell him we should stop sleeping together. It didn't get more tacky and insensitive than that.

He lifted his head to look at me. "Why?"

"Because we shouldn't."

"That is not how you answer a question."

"I didn't know there was a wrong way."

"Well, there is and you've just done it. You're the one who made the declaration, I only asked you to explain it to me. That's fair, I think, as it concerns me."

I took a shaky breath. "I just think it's wrong."

"You're very bad at answering altogether, it seems, so I will help you. Is this making you feel bad?"

"Not entirely."

"And do you feel like you're being coerced into doing something you don't want to do?"

"No." Definitely no.

"I'm not going to ask if you enjoyed it because I think that's obvious, so, I really do not see what the problem is."

"I don't love you," I blurted stupidly. That sounded so harsh. But of course I didn't. We didn't even know each other. "You don't love me," I added awkwardly.

"Do you need to love me to feel good about this, Isabella? I thought your generation wasn't so concerned with prudish morality."

I pushed him away gently and he rolled to the side, propping his head on his hand to look at me. I was staring resolutely at the window above us. The snow had melted in midair it seemed and rain was streaming down the glass steadily. I thought that now I would have a hard time being in a place without rain; it was like a lullaby. I closed my eyes, listening to it, pretending I still had the ability to sleep and it could take me there.

"I've offended you," he said.

"Not really. I just have only ever been with Edward. I wasn't particularly waiting, I just wasn't the type of girl the boys liked where I lived before Forks. Sorry, that's boring. I don't need to love you. I don't need you to love me, I don't need anyone to," I finished, not sure if I believed it.

"So it's just being with _me_ that is wrong then," he said. His voice sounded strange but I couldn't identify the emotion causing it.

"Yes." There was no point in lying.

"Can you tell me why?"

"A lot of reasons."

"I would like one which does not have to do with what happened today. Pretend it's yesterday."

"I was married yesterday."

"Pretend you weren't."

"Well, let's see _you kill people_. Like, all the time." My voice sounded really sarcastically teenaged. I hated it.

"Ah, but with the red hardly gone from your eyes, you judge me for a nature we both possess," he said melodically, running his finger along my cheekbone under one of my eyes.

"But I resist it."

"You have a special power to resist that the rest of us do not. You remember well your brother Jasper's behavior, I assume?"

I nodded. I forgot that he knew almost everything about my time with the Cullens, even up until today, from Edward's mind. So he knew that even after we were basically family, Jasper had to fight the desire to kill me nearly constantly. But Jasper wasn't evil or even especially weak.

"I think, that as human parents give traits to their children, so do our vampire makers give them to us. You got something from Edward, maybe a power to resist, which added onto your own could make you as strong as you are, so able to control your appetite," the last syllable clicked in his mouth. "For some things," he said with an amused grin.

What a cheeky bastard.

"Even before there was venom in your veins . . .' he added unnecessarily.

"I was just trying to convince you not to kill me today when I showed you those things," I said, looking out the window again. Letting him see that was enough, we were never going to discuss it.

"Well you certainly did that, although I'll say it was superfluous motivation as I was not intending to kill you anyway," he said. "So you can feel safe knowing that I have no expectations of you and me. I didn't keep you alive just to fulfill my physical desires. That's just a rather interesting and extremely pleasant addition." He took my hand and pressed his lips to the center of my palm. It sent a weird shiver down my arm. He paused and then said, "You know I saw more than you wanted me to when you showed me those things today." His eyes were intense, gleeful.

"What did you see?" I didn't want to know but I had to. I hoped he hadn't seen Edward and me together. That was mine and I wanted to keep it private, sacred, not open to have him comment or mock it even. Of course, he had seen it through Edward already but he hadn't seen _my_ experience. Then I realized that he'd seen me having an orgasm before I'd shown him myself, before he'd seen it in person as he brought it expertly out of me, multiple times now. And he knew already what it was like to make love to me. Maybe that's why I didn't have to say anything. He already had a complete experience in how to please me from the one other person who had. When I'd walked up to him on the battlefield, he'd known. Fresh in his mind, Edward's memories of all the times we'd made love, including when I was still human, Edward taking my virginity as a human. The most private experiences of my life, his already. He'd looked me over and then smiled at us both, even laughing a little. He wasn't even _pretending_ he didn't know. What a perv. Seriously.

I ignored the fact that it wasn't his fault he saw all of that. He couldn't control it. Or that anyone probably would have looked at us like that after just seeing _everything _about our sex life right in front of us. I wanted to feel rage but I wasn't mad at him. Whatever this thing was that had possessed me on the day Aro and I met was still there, turning me into a monster, a liar, a slave. I was angry for one reason, one I would never admit to him or to anyone else: I liked that he knew, that he'd seen all of those things, seen _me_ doing all of those things. It was a horrible feeling. I should have died. Someone good and pure should be here. Edward. Esme. Alice. Jasper. _Carlisle_. Kind, selfless Carlisle. Anyone, really. Except maybe the Draculas. Those guys were assholes.

"Tell me everything you saw. _Everything,_" I emphasized. It was better to know.

"I saw you holding your daughter as a baby. I saw what you saw when you were first a vampire, looking in the mirror at your pristine new face and your red eyes, which I rather like on you, I'll say. I saw you as a girl, blowing out candles on a birthday cake. And I saw you kissing a boy with dark skin and dark hair. Not Edward," he said, looking at me with his eyebrows raised.

"That's Jacob. He's the one with Renesmee," I said stiffly. Why was he being a jerk? He already knew who it was.

He gasped comically, clearly delighted by this new information. "Ex-boyfriend runs away with daughter! Sounds like one of your human soap operas . . ."

"He wasn't my boyfriend. And it isn't like that; he's protecting her. And I'm not human," I said, sitting up.

"I like that you embrace your transformation so fully. Your Edward fought it so much. Hated his fate. I can't stand a self-loathing vampire," he said airily.

"I wanted to be a vampire, Edward didn't. I can't judge him for his feelings when he was never given a choice," I said to my hands.

"And would you have wanted to be a vampire without Edward? Do you want to be one still? Or would you prefer that I pull your head off for you and be done with it?" He asked, his nimble fingers climbing my spine to the back of my neck.

"No," I turned my head to look at him. "I want to be a vampire as long as I am alive. I don't know if I want to live forever without him though."

He pushed my hair away from my face, sitting up next to me. He kissed my cheek, my shoulder. "That's sweet."

_Yeah, well, it doesn't matter now, does it? You evil bastard._

"Why were you not going to kill me?" I asked.

"Why would I? You're nice and I like you." He sounded a little offended I'd even ask.

"I'm not nice."

"Well I still like you. And I don't like especially killing if it can be avoided. It was Caius who—"

I stood abruptly, cutting him off. "We should go." I wasn't about to listen to him try to make himself look innocent.

We dressed quickly. Taking advantage of a slight lull in the rain, we leapt from the window and made for the woods.

There was the sound of dripping water everywhere, it practically echoed with my vampire hearing.

Aro smiled, bright eyed. "Music."

I couldn't not smile at his childlike reactions to everything. He was a fantastic creature whether or not you thought him a monster. From a distance, easily labeled. But close up this enigma of an ancient vampire who I had slept with twice in a day now, was far more complex.

Then a new sound joined the spattering of water drops. A low rumble. Wolves. Six of them came out of the woods, surrounding us. We weren't on their land. But maybe they thought the treaty was over now that the Cullens were dead. Did they know the Cullens were dead? I didn't really recognize any of them. Wait, that one—

"Leah?"

A petite, grey wolf tossed its head imperiously.

"We're not on Quileute land. This is Charlie's house. I'm allowed to be at my own house!" I said, trying to sound indignant and not as anxious as I was. I did not want to fight and be forced to kill any of Jacob's pack members.

"Oh, but _I_ am not," Aro said, inappropriate amusement in his tone. He was eyeing the wolves delightedly. I remembered what Edward had said about him wanting some of them as guard dogs. He was going to get us fucking killed if he didn't keep his mouth shut and stop looking at them like he was at a damned pet store. I gave him what I hoped was a very obvious look that conveyed that idea and he stayed quiet at least even if he was still cupping his hands together excitedly and looking like he was going to try to hug one of them.

"We're leaving, Leah," I said, then paused, I meant this next part but I felt that saying it now made it real, "And we're never returning. We'll be out of the Olympic National Forest before nightfall. Jacob wouldn't want me harmed," I added, hoping I could squeeze a final act of mercy from the wolves due to my friendship with her former alpha.

The grey wolf narrowed its eyes at me, snarled at Aro and then turned and loped away, impossibly quiet through the trees. Its fellows followed, just as stealthily.

"You have quite a lot of hairy friends," Aro said, with a sort of impressed envy.

"Yeah, sort of," I said. "We can walk most of the way to Seattle through the forest. I don't think we need to run unless you want to but I don't think we should get there before nightfall anyway. You're less frightening in the dark."

"Am I frightening?" he said. "Here I've just thought I was incredibly charming all this time."

I scoffed sarcastically, watching him walk away. "You're going the wrong way!" I called after him. He was instantly back, stopping far too close to me, looming, with an appraising look I couldn't possibly interpret as anything but an invitation for more trouble. I held my breath and shook my head, pushing him away.

"No, we're going now."

"I thought we were," he responded innocently. "You really should learn to control this sexual preoccupation of yours, Isabella . . ."

I just walked away and he followed me obediently.

I didn't know what I was doing.

_What the fuck were we going to do for an entire year? _

I slowed to let him catch up as he was staying several yards behind me, probably to avoid my unpredictable wrath. Wise, but we should talk at least. I could think later. I had a feeling I needed him right now. He was the only person who knew everything and even though I didn't want to talk about it, I wanted someone I _could_ talk about it with if I did.

Someone like me. Someone who knew my name. Someone who had been there when everyone died and could comprehend that horror. He took my hand and I let him. I had asked him to come with me. I shouldn't be treating him so poorly. We walked a little closer together. We were the same now.

I knew if this was going to work, I'd have to forgive him someday.

Not today though.

Definitely not today.

* * *

END NOTES:

I will be selling, "_**Just shut up and fuck me, Aro**,_" t-shirts as soon as possible. That was one of those final edit things. I didn't know if it was out-of-place but it was too funny to delete.

Also, if anyone is capable of drawing/photoshopping Aro hugging a Quileute wolf like it's a giant puppy,_ I will pay you for that picture._

Okay, so I generally try not to interfere with the characters too much. I don't like forcing things, but I'm going to admit to blatant manipulation in this chapter in one area: Aro's outfit. Jasper doesn't really dress that way obviously. And he's about a foot taller than Aro so his clothes wouldn't fit. I was just being lecherous and dressing him in what I'd like hm to wear. Aro in Converse makes me feel a bit melty. That's all.

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**Remmy:** I'm not sure what "different than I'm used to" means so I'm going to pretend it's an obscure but spectacular compliment of some kind. As for Aro's compliance with Bella's wishes: he's a guy and a beautiful girl just told him she thinks about him while she touches herself. Based on my knowledge of guys, he'd follow her just about anywhere after that. Of course, that's not the_ real_ reason in this story because that's gross and since Aro is pretend _I_ can pretend he's not a gross boy and has more interesting motives than that. Which you will learn much, much later.


	3. A Dream and a Nightmare

******Disclaimer: I do not own Twilight nor any of its characters, settings or plot lines. I am not intending to pass off any part of the Twilight universe as my original work nor am I seeking to profit from this work. It is a fanwork intended only for the free (sometimes sexy) entertainment of other fans.**

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**WARNING: Full warning at the bottom as usual. However, if you have any issues with PTSD related to child abuse I strongly recommend that you read the full warning for this chapter. I would feel awful if something in one of my stories was unduly upsetting to any of my lovely readers so I have to offer that much of a spoiler to everyone.  
**

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AN~This story began as a filthy, dirty, smutty one-shot which leaped on me in the parking lot after seeing BD2 for the second time. I was _really_ not into AroBella at the time and was actually deeply immersed in a Twilight/Harry Potter crossover with Aro and _Ginny Weasley_. Hah. Yeah. Imagine explaining how a scrawny kid who sucks at magic killed a super powerful wizard to _Aro. _He was all _WTF!?_

Anyway, writing this story converted me and I am now unhealthily obsessed with them together. And this chapter is the one that made me realize that this story was going to be more substantial than I originally thought.

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**3**

He had been jumping up into every other tree along the way for the last half hour. I didn't know why it was irritating me but it was. And it was creepy to look up and see him crouched predatorily among the branches, his red eyes even more unsettling in the shadows than out in the open. The humans he had killed must have been scared shitless by him. I had been pushing away thoughts about him needing to feed since we left Forks. I was so desperate when I asked him to come with me that I hadn't even thought about it. I pushed it away again now and called his name into the branches above me. I was standing under a thick pine tree. I couldn't see him but he'd disappeared into it a few moments before, leaping from another tree so gracefully you'd think he could fly. I wasn't entirely sure that he couldn't. I knew about the mind-reading but no one had ever said that was his only power.

He landed behind me almost silently and I was proud of myself for not reacting. We started walking again and he stayed on the ground now. I was relieved until I became aware of him watching me. Only when he thought I wasn't looking. As soon as I looked, trying to catch him, he was always looking somewhere else. After about the tenth time I stopped walking.

"What? What the hell are you looking at?" I demanded.

"Have I done something to upset you?"

"Yes. You keep staring at me and I don't like it. Please stop."

"Very well. It wasn't personal though."

Not personal. Staring at me wasn't personal. I wasn't even certain what that was  
supposed to mean.

"Am I allowed to look at you if we're talking?"

"I'm not forbidding you to look at me it's just—forget it. Talking is fine. Looking at me while talking is fine."

"What would you like to talk about?"

"I don't know." I started walking again and he followed me. "How old are you?"

"Around three thousand, give or take a few centuries," he said.

"That's . . . really old."

"It is as you say."

"What do you do with all that time? I mean, aren't you bored?"

"I read."

"Still?"

"Do I still read?"

"Yeah, it just seems like you've probably read every book ever by now."

"Some books are worth reading more than once. And some not even once. They are publishing new ones all the time as well, you know."

"So you just buy every new book that comes out?"

"It's called a library, Isabella. They lend you books."

_"You have a library card?" _

"You're impressed by odd things . . ."

"It's just so . . ._ normal_. Do you drive a Prius too?"

"I don't drive. I don't like machines."

"And now you're weird again."

"I'm sorry."

"You don't have to be sorry for being weird. I'm sure there's nothing you can do about it."

"Perhaps."

"Have you known any really famous people from the past?"

"Ones that are not vampires you mean?"

"There are famous vampires?" I had assumed that wasn't something they would allow but I guess if no one knew about them . . .

"Of course. Most of them are ones you wouldn't know probably as they were only known in their time and forgotten after their supposed deaths. There has only been one notable one in the last century. We had to convince him to . . . become less visible when his career got a bit too out-of-hand." He ended there and picked up a long stick and started twirling it as we walked appearing as though he had no intention of continuing.

"Well?"

"Well what?"

Seriously? _"Who was it?_"

"I'm sorry. It just seemed sort of obvious."

"Kurt Cobain?" I asked hesitantly.

"No. As far I know he is actually dead. Guns are so very dangerous . . ." he said like Kurt's death was an unfortunate accident brought on by people's inability to reject technology that was obviously hazardous to them.

I tried to think of other people who had died or disappeared in the middle of their careers. People who were beautiful enough and exceptional enough to have been vampires.

"He was _really_ famous, I'm guessing?"

"He is one of the most famous people who has ever lived according to modern record-keeping."

"Michael Jackson? No,_ Elvis!_ Elvis is a vampire. He's_ not _dead. He's a fucking _vampire!_" I almost giggled. I felt like I had just learned the biggest secret _ever_ and now I couldn't tell anyone.

"I said it was obvious."

"That makes sense, I guess. People were _obsessed_ with him. It did sort of seem like he was supernatural in some way. Did he have any special powers?"

"I do not think you would like to know that information."

"Okay, I'm going to introduce you to a rule of the modern world: You're never, ever allowed to say something like that without following it up."

"Allowed? What happens if I break this rule?"

"I get to punch you . . . in the face."

"That doesn't sound very pleasant."

"It's not supposed to be. Now tell me."

"Are you a fan of his music?"

"I'm eighteen, not seventy."

"Very well. He has . . . the opposite of Jane's ability," he said discreetly.

The opposite of unbearable pain . . .

_Oh_.

"So he can like make people, um . . ."

"All of those screaming girls and no one had any idea. And _they_ certainly never told anyone . . ."

"That's one of the most disturbing things I have ever heard."

"Yes. He and Jane did get into a fight once though. That was . . . amusing to watch."

"Gross!" But I was smiling. And suddenly very grateful to him for coming with me. Having a normal conversation like this made me realize how awful being alone would have been. But at the same time, discovering that he was just a person I could talk to was nearly as unsettling as when I had noticed that he was attractive earlier. I started to reach for his hand and stopped myself.

"So, does it only work on females?" I asked. Just keeping _talking . . . _and don't look at him_. _

He looked uncomfortable, snapping the stick he was carrying in half, it appeared, accidentally and throwing it aside before answering. "No. He's actually banned from Volterra. He's a bit of an 'asshole' I think you call them now. I mean, you can't disagree with him so . . . "

I started laughing, just a little bit at first and tried to cover my mouth with my hands to stop it but this conversation, added to the increasingly unbelievable events of this day, set off this insane fit of hysterical giggling that I couldn't control and the more I attempted, the worse it got until I had to sit down on the ground and hide my face in my arms for several minutes. When I was finally able to calm down and stand again, Aro was leaning on a tree, watching me with a bemused expression.

"You're a peculiar girl."

"Well, you would know."

"I'll confess that I do not know what you mean."

"You've just met a lot of girls so you would know if I was peculiar."

"I suppose that's true. People are all very much the same."

"Is it boring reading their minds then if it's the same thing again and again?"

"A little."

"It seems like it would be hard to like be involved with someone if you knew everything about them that way."

"I would not know. I've never experienced anything else."

A buzzing silence followed this statement. _Never_. Never until me. I was unique in a very significant way. I never thought I would want to be a faceless girl in a sea of girls before but I desperately wanted to be lost in a crowd this time.

"So, you've probably had _a lot_ of girlfriends," I fished, bizarrely hoping for triple digit numbers and not in any way prepared for his actual response.

"And a few boyfriends."

"I—oh . . ."

"What? Did you think Carlisle and I were just _chums_, living together for twenty years? Your naiveté is practically adorable."

Carlisle. Whoa. That's _awkward._ I tried to recover after this unexpected revelation without seeming weird. "Oh, um, that's cool. I wasn't trying to be judgmental or anything. Not that it matters what I think, I just, um, you seemed pretty into girls earlier . . ."

"Oh, I am, I'd be happy to show you again if you like," he said, grabbing me and pushing me against a tree.

I closed my eyes. No. I ducked under his arm and kept walking with an impressive amount of restraint.

He caught up. "Carlisle nearly got _me _kicked out of Volterra, actually. We couldn't keep our hands off of each other other. It annoyed Caius to no end," he said happily.

"I've never kissed a girl." This was turning into confession time at the strangest sleep-over in the entire history of the world. Which he could probably confirm actually.

"Oh, you should, it's very pleasant."

"I don't think so. I definitely only like boys."

"Really? I thought Edward was a bit ladylike . . ."

"He did _die_ today," I said, my voice rising against my will.

"Yes, I recall._ You_ haven't seemed to be very concerned about it, however. Curious . . . "

"I'm trying not to be right now. We don't have time for that. We have a lot of things to do. Like deciding where we're going to go. Also we've been fucking all over town, that's kind of distracting." I sounded almost angry at this last part like us having sex had been the equivalent of getting a flat tire on a long road trip. An annoying inconvenience.

"Yes, I liked that part," he said, unfazed by my grumpiness. "And I know this is a small town, but I don't think we've quite fucked _all_ over it yet. I would be willing to correct that oversight so as to not make you a liar though . . . " he offered, reaching out and pulling me to him. I wasn't quick enough to stop him from kissing me this time and once we had started I wasn't sure I had the self-control to resist leaping again into the inviting darkness of our needy alliance. He was a lot stronger than me but wasn't holding me tight enough that I couldn't get away. Even if I wanted to, the taste of his mouth and the way he was touching the skin of my lower back under my shirt were making it impossible to think rationally. And as the bright, quick pain that had flared at his insinuation that I didn't care about Edward's death retreated, I melted into the illicit comfort of his touch like candle wax softening near the fierce heat of a wick-anchored flame.

"Do you want me to stop?" He asked softly while at the same time moving his hand downward, duplicating the action of my throne room fantasy perfectly.

I leaned into him instead of speaking as his fingers slipped down over the front of my jeans, stopping with eerie precision on the most sensitive part of my body and settling into the contours there with confident ease.

"Show me again."

"Show you what?" I gasped.

"Your thoughts from the plane. While I do this to you."

My fingers dug into his arms and my legs tightened on his hand which wasn't really moving, just applying gentle steady pressure.

"Promise me you won't try to look at anything else."

"I won't try but it could happen without my control."

I didn't wait for my mind to right itself and yell out what a terrible idea this was. I let my shield go and it swelled out from me easily, like a soap bubble expanding, enveloping us both in its airy, fragile body.

I closed my eyes and felt the movement of the plane around me, the sensation of my fingertips pressed to my lips and then the memories of my fantasy within that memory rose quickly and grew sharp and bright until we could both see it like we were there.

_We're standing in the middle of the room. Edward and Alice are both restrained. Marcus and Caius are insisting I know too much. Aro laments that if only Edward intended to make me immortal none of this would be necessary. All of it reality until he approaches me and then it skews away as he reaches me and brings his mouth to my lips rather than my throat. I hear Alice gasp. _

He kissed me then, tentative and reserved as though we'd never kissed before.

_My body sways toward him and I part my lips obediently when his cold stone ones silently direct it, allowing him to taste the warm privacy of my mouth and the tip of my tongue as it encounters his with unearned intimacy. Edward struggles against the hold Felix has on him. He curses at Aro who ignores him, completely focused on what he's doing to me. My entire body flushes hot with shame but I don't try to resist his caresses as they escalate in inappropriate sensuality. _

_"You could stay here._ I_ would turn you, Isabella," he says, his mouth skipping down my throat to my collar bone._

I heard myself whisper "Okay" in response to his fantasy counterpart's offer which was not part of the original memory and I'm grateful that he doesn't openly acknowledge this unintended aberration.

_Now his hand goes downward, sliding coldly over my stomach, chilling my skin through the thin fabric of my shirt. His thumb dips into the waistband of my jeans for a second then he quickly moves on until with a sudden, fluid motion he's cupping me between my legs, requiring me to part my thighs which I do without hesitation, my hands clinging to his jacket for support. My willingness couldn't have been lost on anyone witnessing this rude display. _

He pressed upward and a violent tremor unhinged the connecting points in my hips and knees making me into a loose, submissive marionette, only not collapsing into a clacking, disjointed heap because of his arm circling my waist.

_I rock against him, keeping my eyes closed so I don't see the faces of everyone watching us. I don't care if they see, I only care about what he's doing to me and saying to me. He tells me again I can stay. It would be easy. I could just say yes. And I would be his. His lover. His pet. His special vampire._

I had forgotten about that part. I tried to pull back. It was too late for him to not see that but I was sick with regret now. He couldn't think I wanted that. That I wanted to belong to him. There was a tug on my shield, like the way it feels to have your skin distorted by the adhesive of a band-aid as you pull it free.

And then I was seeing the room again only it wasn't from my perspective, it was his. I was seeing his own memory of that day somehow. I saw me, disheveled and frightened looking. I experienced my human self through vampire senses. I saw the flush of my skin and heard my blood rushing in my veins, bullied around by my heart which was fluttering irregularly like a startled bird in a cage. Alive, alive and so wonderfully delicate. I tasted venom as it rose in my mouth, in his mouth. I felt the insane desire to drink my own blood, crush my fragile human body in my arms and feel my heart beating frantically as I fed. I wanted to taste the warm, soft skin of my neck as that unique blood crossed onto my tongue in an exquisite crimson rush with my impossible mental silence behind it, to kill once without seeing every—

Then my shield snapped back sharply and we were again standing in the woods, still clinging to each other but frozen now. It was obvious that he hadn't intended to share that memory with me by the stunned expression on his face.

"I'm so sorry." I felt like I had stolen something by somehow taking that memory against his will.

But he didn't look angry or upset. He kissed me. It contained far more aggression than he'd shown before even after my crude command to fuck me that first time. He ripped my bag away from my shoulders and started to undo my pants almost clumsily. I wasn't resisting but he broke away from my mouth long enough to confirm again that I wanted to keep going then slid his hand into my pants and touched me like before only now with just a thin layer of cotton separating his fingers from contact with me. I toed my shoes off and he helped tug my jeans down and then guided me back onto the wet ground. I was still wearing my underwear and I expected he would tear them but he didn't. He touched me again through them. And now in the open air I could feel that they were slightly damp. Undeniable evidence of his effect on me. That must have been why he was doing it. He slid them off my legs carefully and kept them crumpled in one hand as I helped him remove the final barriers between us. He held my wrists, pressing them down into the rain-softened undergrowth as he entered me roughly. His eyes were closed and his face placid and nearly angelic, like he was listening to some transcendent music but I now knew it was only the sublime absence of every thought I had ever had and every thought I was having while we did this. With me he heard what everyone else did when they had sex. Here it was birds and animals and insects moving in the trees. The wind. Water dripping. My breathing, layered under his. The debris of the forest floor, shifting under us as we moved. I didn't make a sound. I was mute like he had been both times before.

I was aware of my panties, still in his hand, trapped between my wrist and his palm, a reminder that the one person who could give him this silent intimacy desired him and knew that secretly, he wished he could not read minds. I had failed in my goal to become lost in a crowd. Not only did I know something about him which no one else knew, I was the realization of it.

I tried to stay quiet, to let him enjoy his escape the same way he had let me enjoy mine. But a low compressed sound was wrenched from me anyway when he brought his face down to mine and started whispering something against my cheek. I was concentrating so hard on not making noise that it took me a minute to recognize that it wasn't English. It didn't sound Italian either but I could tell he was repeating the same thing again and again. Then he kissed me, biting my lip, just on the edge of being too hard and trying to imprison my sounds became impossible. I moaned at a volume just under obscene, bracing my feet on the forest floor and tilting my hips upward. He gasped and bit me again, on the shoulder this time, getting a similar reaction. He thrust harder, watching me intently as I responded to his control over me. I didn't try to stay quiet now. He wanted this, to see me submissive, willingly captive and consumed by unfeigned lust.

After a few minutes of this crude game he smiled, apparently satisfied by my performance, and tightening his hands around my wrists, brought his mouth to my ear and said, "Ti aro."

I didn't need a translation to know that he was marking me with his words and as though my body were just waiting for his permission, I writhed violently, twisting at his hold on my wrists and stuttering a mixture of gibberish, profanity and his name, again his name as my pleasure finally rounded off and completed itself in an immaculate crash leaving me shattered and pliant underneath him. A broken doll. His doll. He released my wrists and took my face sweetly in his hands, kissing me with out-of-place delicacy as he joined me with several quick thrusts. If there was any verbal indication of his orgasm, it was lost in that kiss.

We did not linger afterwards. On my part I was being seared by shame as I replaced the few items of clothing I'd taken off. This thing between us was escalating. The first time just a consequence of sorrow and the second a relaxed dive into obscurity. This though, now each of us knew a secret about the other which had been recognized in this recent act. Where he possessed me and I let him. Let him own me, the embodiment of his private desire to be just like everyone else in this one way. To experience normality for the first time in three millennia.

He was dressed again before me and stood a few feet away, watching as I tied my shoes. I had to go slowly because they were so old I could have snapped the laces easily if I wasn't paying attention. When I was done I grabbed my bag, threw it over my shoulder and started walking fast without looking at him. I wanted to be angry at him but that wasn't fair. I was his partner in every second of that encounter.

He sped up until he was next to me and then matched my pace. He glanced at me a few times before trying to take my hand again like he had done as we left Charlie's house but I snatched it away, stuffing it into my pocket. I wasn't trying to be mean I just needed to hate him for a little while so I could not hate myself.

"I'm sorry. We just need to get away from here, okay?"

"As you wish," he said. I was relieved that he did not appear upset by my completely unfair treatment.

"Why are you so horny anyway?" I demanded after a few more miles of conversationless walking. "Are you always like this?" It was a ridiculous thing to ask of course, it certainly wasn't his obsession that brought us here. I just wanted to blame him.

He looked at me closely for a moment and then I suppose deciding not to highlight my hypocrisy said, "Not really, no. I do a lot of other things back in Volterra. Lots of vampires in the world, you know, and not all of them behaving. I don't even really think about it until I have reason to, but then . . . well, you've seen." He smiled at me in a way that made me fight a shiver. "And anyway, my mate and I have been together so long—"

"You have a mate?" I asked sharply, stopping dead mid-stride and only not tripping because I now had vampiric insulation against my innate clumsiness. I clung to his words, grateful for a reason to be legitimately angry, to hold onto my hate like a security blanket made of razorblades.

"Yes, Sulpicia. I assumed Carlisle would have mentioned her to all of you . . . "

"He didn't really talk about you," I said shortly.

"Oh. Well, I met her right around when Carlisle left. She was a human. Changed for me."

"I assume you love her then?" I said grumpily. He might had mentioned this before he started literally tearing my clothes off in the middle of the damned woods.

"I thought you didn't need me to love you?" he said mildly but with an air of mocking that made me consider slapping him a second time.

"I don't. That's not the point," I snapped. "You're cheating on her. Does she love _you_? 'Cause you're being kind of shitty if she does!"

He laughed and this enraged me, I lunged at him but he skipped away, still laughing, before I could land any blows.

"And what about just leaving for a year, huh?" I continued my rant, shouting now. "Don't you think she's going to want to know where you are? Or were you not planning to stay for a year like you said!?" I was growing hysterical but I couldn't stop.

"I'm sorry," he said, but he was obviously suppressing amusement at my outrage. "It's just that if you had _met_ my wife you would know that she's perfectly all right. And plenty happy in Volterra without me around. I think I just annoy her more than anything these days. She's not a cheery sort, you know," he said affectionately.

"Your wife!? _You're a bastard!_ You didn't say _wife!_" I don't know why it bothered me so much more but it did and it was fuel for my unjustified anger toward him. At least, unjustified about the sex. I could still feel angry about everything else except that was fading, the further we got from Forks the hazier it all become. It was another life, with different rules and inhabitants which didn't exist in the new one. I had fallen down a rabbit hole. And Aro was every character in my personal horrible Wonderland. White Rabbit and Mad Hatter and recurrently, obnoxiously a mocking, smug Cheshire Cat. And maybe even the Queen of Hearts when he finally decides to take my head off after he's bored.

"Well, it's all technical anyway," he said dismissively. "I mean, we were married traditionally when we met but as we've exceeded the length of our human lives many times over since then I really don't know how much it matters . . ."

"It's until _death_ do you part," I said starchily.

"And both of us are dead."

"So what!? Edward and I were married and it mattered!" I was screaming. I needed to stop. It was all catching up to me and in a moment it would bury me in cold like one of the massive, frigid waves of a Pacific-Northwest beach and I would drown while the hurt filled my lungs like suffocating sea water. I sat down on the ground but was pulled back to my feet immediately. And then he was hugging me. It was far more awkward and shocking than any other event that had happened that day. Aro, leader of the Volturi, comforting me over my dead husband. I was glad no one had tried to tell me about this when we got ready this morning to go to the field, because I might have just killed myself rather than do any of it.

"I forgot how recently you were human. Little things still seem to matter so much," he said soothingly.

"Our marriage wasn't a little thing," I said, but my rage was gone, I was talking into his chest but I knew he could hear me. It was cruel that I could not cry. I thought of Marcus and his eternal, near catatonic, sadness and I shuddered. I hoped I would not become that.

"Mine wasn't either. Because I was in love with her when we married. I won't make assessments about whether or not your love for Edward was a little thing but your human marriage was just paper. What will it matter when everyone who has ever heard of you is dead?"

"It'll matter to me," I insisted.

He patted my back comfortingly and released me.

"Do not worry about Sulpicia. We're not breaking her heart, I assure you. She and I are friends but we haven't been lovers for a long time. I think she considers me more of a pet now, really. She's like that. I'm surprised she doesn't pat me on the head whenever we meet. She isn't afraid of me at all!" he said proudly.

"I'm not afraid of you," I said, trying to sound nonchalant.

He didn't say anything, he just stared at me for an uncomfortably long amount of time, his crimson eyes never leaving my face. Finally, he smiled, very slightly, but the effect was deeply unsettling after remaining immobile for so long. I shuddered and then huffed, annoyed that he'd won. He smiled nicely then and patted my cheek.

"It's good to be afraid of me, Bella," he said. "I am completely insane. Never know what I'll do."

He leaned in to give me a kiss and I almost flinched away but it was chaste and sweet and did actually make me feel better. He took my hand. Seattle was another twenty minutes away if we kept walking but I suggested that we run. He offered to take the bag, which was silly because I was strong enough to dismantle a school bus but the gentlemanliness was sort of endearing.

* * *

He grabbed my arm suddenly, bringing us to a skidding halt, just as the open air started to appear beyond the trees. His eyes were much darker than they had been this morning and he looked a little crazed.

"I should eat."

My throat caught fire at his words. "Yeah, I need to hunt too . . ." I said hesitantly, glancing back into the trees.

"It would seem we're not dining together."

"No, ah, that wouldn't be good I don't think. Should we meet back here?" I asked. I wasn't excited about us parting ways but I didn't want to see him feed either.

"An hour?" He suggested.

"Uh, that sounds fine, but I don't think it'll take that long with the woods right here . . . "

"Yes, well, I will need to be concerned with concealment in a populous area like this," he said discreetly. He picked a leaf from my hair and squinted at me for a moment like he was trying to figure out if I was a painting he liked.

And then he was gone so fast I didn't even see a blur. Someone was going to die because I brought him here. I was an accomplice to murder and would be everywhere we went from here on. An untraceable, quicksilver plague was about to pass through America and I would be the one dumping a vial of the infection into the water supplies of the cities we passed through. Thinking about this was making me realize that I did have a plan, it was forming as we left Forks and becoming clearer as we ran. We would become nomads, cross the continent together and if we came to the edge before the year ended we would dive into the sea and keep going. Always moving. Always running.

I turned into the trees and inhaled deeply. Not a lot around here, mostly small things. I ran back into the trees a few hundred yards and paused, sniffing again and listening. There. A heartbeat, a large one. I sped off toward it. As I got close I leapt into a nearby tree to inspect my prey. The wind had been blowing away from me as I ran and I had only heard the heartbeat, but as I got up higher the scent from below wrapped me in the unmistakable technicolor tapestry of human blood. I thought there would be no one out this far, I swallowed against that burning ache in my throat and was about to turn and run off when I heard a small scream. I don't think it even would have registered if I had been human. I climbed higher and leapt back, silent and swift, until I could see through the trees.

A truck with its lights on was parked in the trees, facing me, blinding me. I continued through the trees around the clearing to the rear of the truck. There was a large man there and a smaller figure on the ground at his feet. A girl, whose heart was beating so shallowly, it might as well have been not beating at all. He was about to bring a shovel down on her head. I reacted like the wild animal I kind of was and I jumped, shrieking, from the tree to land perfectly on the man's shoulders.

The girl was looking up at me, weak fear on her face. I'm certain I looked quite terrible, my pale skin glinting in the dark, my strange eyes and mass of dark hair tumbled around my face. With a feral cry I twisted the man's neck until I heard his skull separate from his spine with a disgusting pop. He was dropping out from under me, we were both going to land on the girl. I put out one hand and touched the ground on the other side of her, springing us backwards.

I hit something hard that didn't move under my momentum. I thought the clearing had been empty and we weren't near the truck. I looked up and saw Aro. He had caught me under the arms. He was looking down at me with his mouth open, astonished. I had a flash of the battle and remembered that I had tried to do this same thing to him only a few hours ago when he was attacking Edward but he'd shaken me off and disappeared into the chaotic scene around us a moment later. I hadn't seen him again until it was all over. Witnessing now just how quickly and easily I could twist a man's head from his body had to be completely terrifying.

I realized how close I had come to killing him and erasing this alternate universe in an instant without either of us ever knowing. I couldn't guess at what his actions had been when I'd lost sight of him or how him surviving my attack had effected the rest of the fight. I forced myself not to wonder about the other possible outcomes of the battle. Wishing for a better ending at the cost of his life made me feel sick because I couldn't imagine killing him now. Remembering how I almost had was revolting juxtaposed against images of us together, kissing and fucking and sharing memories so private they had never been shared with anyone else we knew. It was a fact that if he had died, they never would have been. His would have been lost and mine would have festered forever while I watched the face of my perfect husband as it never aged, reminding me that it never would and I would have that guilt until the day the cleansing release of fire caught me, by my own hand or that of some unknown future foe, ending the agony of an imagined betrayal so real it may as well have been.

I stood, facing him. Even in the nearly complete darkness of the clearing, I could see him as clearly as if we were standing in the sunlight. There was a sudden and profound sadness on his face. I couldn't know the exact source but I wanted to stop it. At least one of the causes had to have been me. He had to be thinking I was regretting not having managed to kill him. I stepped forward and put my arms around him, comforting and human, like you would for a friend whose loved one had died. There was a second of hesitation and then he hugged me back, bowing his head so it was next to mine. This wasn't like when he held me while I was screaming a little while ago. This was the first moment between us that had nothing to do with anyone else. A real moment. An honest one. I drew back and took his face between my hands. He shifted nervously under my gaze but before anything else could occur, before one of us could say or do something stupid, the girl moaned softly. I had forgotten her, the reason I had jumped from the trees.

Aro released me carefully and zipped over to her. He knelt next to her head and took one of her tiny hands, placing it between his.

"She will not live." He stated and looked back at me, "It would be a mercy," he said.

He was going to kill her.

"How do you know she won't live?"

"Experience," he said simply. "I won't tell you what that man has done to her because it would be indelicate but you don't need to be your Alice to know that if she did live, this girl would have an unfortunate life ahead. People never really recover from some things . . ."

I didn't want to believe that because it might mean _I_ would never recover from the loss of my family even if I lived forever, which I would. There was a sort of melancholy ring of truth to his words though. I was looking at her sadly, unable to speak.

"Listen to her heart, Bella."

It was slowing. Fluttering. He was right.

I nodded. I should have turned away but I didn't. He lifted the girl into his arms. She was very thin and her hair was so dirty I wasn't even sure what color it was. This man had to have been keeping her for a while. She looked to be about twelve. I didn't need to read minds to vividly guess the details of her stay with him. And now she would die whether or not we did it. Just in the few moments since I had jumped from the trees, her eyes had become glossy and unseeing.

Tenderly, he moved her hair from her tiny neck and brought his mouth to her skin. I heard a wet biting sound and she twitched and then lay still in his arms. She might have been sleeping and Aro was just holding her, rocking her to keep away nightmares. In a way, he was, she would never have to have any nightmares about any of these things. She would be free. Aro was right, it was a mercy. I heard her heart stop and then Aro lowered her back to the ground.

It was the first human vampire kill I had actually witnessed. And here was my own first human kill at my feet. I did not regret his death. I did wonder if I would have drank from him if I hadn't been reacting in the moment. If Aro had arrived earlier and surveyed the situation. Would we have then killed them together? A vigilante team which dispatched justice and mercy equally as we fulfilled the demands of our unholy thirst.

Aro was there in front of me, his face cautious. "We should leave. And you still have not eaten."

I nodded. "What about them? This is a weird scene to leave here."

"You said it was a weird city."

"It is. But they're going to wonder about him . . ."

The man at my feet had thick glasses and a patchy beard. He was about thirty-five and slightly overweight. His head was turned almost ninety degrees on his neck, the skin twisted sickeningly like flesh-colored taffy.

"I mean, she didn't do that. No human could," I said, uneasy now.

"No. You killed him magnificently, I must say." There was an impressed timbre in his voice that I wasn't sure I liked.

"I didn't think I would ever kill anyone . . ."

"He deserved to die," Aro said firmly. "This is how men like this used to die before the modern 'justice' system. I've killed hundreds like him. You may think me vile, sweet Isabella, but this man at your feet is worse even than I."

"I don't think you're vile," I said automatically.

"You have a habit of thinking too much of people," he said and took my hand, pulling me away. "We do not leave finger prints. Our flesh is too unyielding and there is no oil to leave behind, so don't worry about Charlie hearing about your prints being found at a scene like this."

"Look at you, CSI!" I said, momentarily distracted by this unexpected knowledge of crime scene investigation.

"Unfortunately, I know every detail. I have to hear everything everyone thinks after all," he reminded. Then, quieter, "I know too much."

The truly awful consequences of his "gift" were particularly poignant after what had just happened. I had only been forced to imagine the horror that girl faced after seeing her battered and starved condition, he had to see it, hear it, feel it, taste it, smell it. And see every horrible thing all of those other people he had mentioned had done as well. And the suffering of every victim he encounters. He never knows which ones harbor heartbreaking secrets until he's already touching them and then it's too late, he knows it all forever, stored in his perfect, immortal mind. And everyone has monsters, big or small, hiding in them somewhere. Now they're all his. Along with every good thing too, things he can no longer experience himself. No wonder he said he was completely insane. Anyone would be. I wondered if his strange, sometimes out-of-place, cheerfulness was some kind of personal defense mechanism against all that darkness. My view of him shifted, slightly but irrevocably, in that moment.

He was pulling on my hand but I couldn't just leave that girl how she was. I found some wild flowers just inside of the trees and I placed a minuscule bouquet of them next to her still cheek. This was all weird enough that the cops might not even notice. They might think they were there before the girl was. I thought of Renesmee and I had to resist the urge to turn on the dead man and crush every bone in his body before we left. It felt awful to leave her little body there in the dark alone. I almost asked if we could camp out until someone found her but Aro was pulling me insistently into the trees. I still needed to hunt and after that bizarre scene that had just happened I was thirstier than ever. I hoped very much that the next living thing was an animal.

Luckily, a scrawny deer, all alone, maybe a late in the season baby who hadn't had time to fatten before the snow, appeared after a minor search. I crouched in the bushes for a moment out of habit. Aro was watching me with a strange little smile. I sprang into the clearing and snagged the animal up into the air. I landed on my back so that the deer was upside down on top of me, its spindly legs flailing, its little heart beating furiously. I didn't hesitate to sink my teeth into its neck. It was only a minute until I was done. A small animal, with a small, delicate heart that slowed with a gentle stutter under my hand before stopping. I rolled to the side carefully when I finished, placing the still-warm, furry little body on the ground in a dignified sleeping position.

I returned to Aro. He was staring at me more intently than ever now. I think he would have tried to kiss me if not for the dark aura of the incident before this one, still hanging over us. I wished I felt like kissing him. A crazy inclination. I needed to distance myself from him, not draw closer. He just held out his hand and I took it.

"You_ are_ incredible," was all he said.

"I think we should get a hotel," I said, choosing to ignore his odd praise. "I'm used to human amenities."

"I didn't exactly live in a pit, naked, in Volterra, you know," he responded, feigning insult.

I shook my head to clear the images that the word "naked" had conjured. He was right, I was sexually preoccupied. And it was solely responsible for our current situation.

I sighed. "I feel like I should be tired. It's hard to get used to that. After this day, I should want to have a bath and go to bed," I said. My voice was tired.

"You still can, who says you need to sleep in your bed?"

I squinted at him, trying to decide if he was being lascivious or not.

"I won't touch you," he promised.

I just looked ahead. I didn't _want_ him not to touch me. I wanted to cling to him, to make myself not feel by devouring him. But that wasn't fair. I didn't know what I should think of him after today except that I felt distinctly more uneasy about using him now.

I kept my eyes off him until we left the trees. The way the dim light of the forest made his face luminous was very appealing and I wouldn't have been able to resist reaching out to feel his skin under my fingertips if I had looked at him more than necessary.

This was a dream. A nightmare.

Something in between.

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END NOTES:

So, yes. Three chapters in a row with sex. Well, hopefully you're into that because they have sex in nearly every chapter. As you may have noticed, their emotional relationship sort of evolves through their sexual relationship. This story is sort of the opposite of porn with plot. It's porn _is_ plot. Go, PIP!

There is a timeline change here. Sulpicia and Aro have not been together for as long as they are in canon. And Carlisle is older and was with them during an earlier time period. It's not relevant in any way to the story, it just made things more convenient for me. Lazy writing.

As far as Sulpicia, she, as you've no doubt gathered, does not come to Forks with the guard and Aro does not keep her locked in a tower. Because she could absolutely beat his ass. In my stories, she is extremely powerful, completely terrifying and looks like Christina Hendricks. (Joan from _Mad Men_.) She is taller than Aro, obscenely curvy and has red hair. She is awesome. Aro worships her. Google Hendricks.

Okay. So, do you want to know what "**ti aro**" means? Google translate will not assist you here. If you know any romance languages, you know about how their verbs work. The verb here is "arare" which actually means "to plow" but Aro is using it as slang. I have only found this meaning in one place so I believe it is obscure but I can't say as I don't know any Italians and would be too terrified to ask them if I did. I vaguely questioned my Italian instructor last week to ensure the pronoun was correct. So, according to my sources, that verb means "to possess sexually" when used as slang. When I found it, and saw immediately that the first person conjugation was "aro" I _had_ to use it. (After an insane giggling fit that took some time to get under control.) So, if you want to think of it this way, his name means, "I possess sexually." Seems pretty damned accurate to me. _Anyway_. What he _says_ roughly means, "I own you (sexually)." _Yeah_. He's dirty.

P.S. If you know the correct translation to that, _don't tell me._ I would like to keep the filthy perfection of that intact.

P.P.S. New Volturi wedding invite scene today! Creepiest Aro yet for sure. But _so pretty_.

Long notes this time. You can wake up now. I'll respond to reviews next time to not make this any longer.

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**CONTENT GUIDE:** **Sex, violence, profanity. There is a scene in which kidnapping and non-explicit, long-term child abuse is mentioned several times. Sexual abuse is implied. _But something very bad happens to that man don't worry. _**


	4. Not As Easy As You Think

AN~Okay. My trip is done. Sunlight is done. This story is my focus now so there shouldn't be another insane delay like that again. I tried to update the blog about this but Blogger was behaving oddly and not allowing me to create new posts. For those who haven't read _Sunlight_, there's a blog that will have update forecasts and extra content related to my fics and fanart.

It's here:

**prettyfakefaces dot blogspot dot com** (replace the dots with periods and remove the spaces)

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**4**

The only really difficult part of this adventure into the city would be going into a well-lit building of any kind with Aro. I pulled him into an alley next to a tall hotel with a large W on top and forced the brown contacts on him. Maybe an hour ago it would have been okay, when his eyes were darker, but now they were bright red, practically glowing. That wouldn't work even here. Especially not for someone who was going to check into an expensive hotel. Punks and weirdos didn't do that. Not at the prices we were going to pay.

"These are mine, you're not really supposed to share contacts but since you can't get an infection . . ."

He stood perfectly still and let me place them. It was really unnerving to touch another person's eyeball, maybe moreso because he didn't flinch at all even when I slipped with the first one and raked my fingernail across his cheek trying to catch it. And he wasn't just looking at me while I did it, he was watching me carefully like he was waiting for a cue.

I stepped back quickly when I was done, he blinked at me a few times until the lens settled. Now his eyes were a deep reddish brown. It was an arresting color in itself but at least it looked almost natural. He still didn't look all that human but if you didn't already know what he was, you wouldn't think that right off.

"You still look freaky," I said tactlessly. "But kind of like you have a medical condition or something. People will stare, but we don't have a choice. Now we'll see if a place like this will let us in without a credit card."

He sniffed haughtily at my freaky comment and followed me out of the alley.

"Are we married?" he asked as we passed onto the sidewalk.

"What?"

"They might want to know at the desk," he explained.

"Um, I thought you'd eaten people from this century, no one cares anymore."

"We should still have names," he insisted.

"I have one."

"And I do as well, but whose last name are we using? I don't have one of those and I think it might be unwise to put 'Volturi' on any sort of paperwork."

"Right. Swan, then," I said with finality.

"Not Cullen?"

I ignored this as we reached the front entrance and a doorman eyed us warily as he let us in. We were wearing mostly designer clothes and our unnaturally beautiful faces made us welcome anywhere but after the events of the day I'm certain we looked quite insane as we stepped into the lobby that night.

The girl at the desk couldn't quite stop a gasp from rising out of her when she looked up at us. She became professional immediately though and was perfectly gracious from then on. She was a little difficult about the money but I offered a thousand dollar deposit and she began typing our information into a computer. I was suddenly unsure about using my maiden name and when she asked for a last name I said, "Carlisle," without thinking. I didn't look at Aro who I saw in my peripheral vision was smirking at me in an obnoxious way.

"Okay," she said finally and got up from her chair, bustling around collecting things for me to sign and getting our keys.

Aro, who had been very good so far, was smiling in what he must have thought was a friendly way but was deeply unsettling instead. I kicked him and he stopped immediately after a glance at me.

The girl handed me our keys and directed us to the elevators with the practiced gestures of a veteran flight attendant. She smiled at me a little enviously and for the first time I knew it was because I was beautiful and not because I was with someone beautiful, like Edward. It had happened a lot with him. I was certain she only found Aro terrifying even without his red eyes. He was an acquired taste regardless of how delightful he thought himself.

We stood at the elevator side by side but not touching, our only bag my black one, full of clothing and about a hundred thousand dollars in cash. It had been stashed all over the Cullen's house and I had retrieved it all quickly before following Aro out to the field. There were debit cards too that I thought we could use sparingly at ATMs before they were shut down. And then my passport, with my plain, pink human face and my maiden name on it. I looked mildly deranged in the picture. I wasn't Isabella Cullen officially anywhere. We didn't really have time for paperwork after the wedding. And I wasn't Isabella Swan either. I was no one.

The elevator's doors were slick gold with a mirror finish, they reflected us, submerged in yellow, on each side of where they split. They would separate us when they parted. But now, while we waited, we had the first look at ourselves since leaving the Cullen's. I looked like a supermodel still somehow. My hair, which would have been a gross mess by now as a human, was still soft, bouncy even, shiny. My clothes fit impeccably. Aro looked as put together as I did. Only his long, dark hair was out of place in this setting and even that was excusable if you were rich or famous and we looked both.

It was a little exciting. It was the first time I'd really been out since my change except when I went to get Jacob and Renesmee's passports. I was ashamed to admit that the look the man who was already in the elevator, obviously coming up from the garage, gave me was gratifying. Then he saw Aro next to me and the blatant leering ended abruptly. Aro grinned at him and the man shifted to the back of the car. I would have hit him again if it hadn't been too obvious. I settled for giving him an exasperated sideways look as soon as our backs were to the man.

Our floor came up first. As we stepped off Aro suddenly grabbed me around the waist, pulling me close in a very suggestive way. He gave the man a look over my shoulder before the doors closed. I couldn't see his reaction but I heard Aro chuckle so he must have gotten the one he'd hoped for.

"Why did you do that?" I asked, feeling awkward. I wasn't used to being wanted by strangers.

"Because it was fun," he said happily.

"What did he do?"

"He looked mystified. And jealous. And scared," he said.

He moved his hand to the small of my back and guided me down the hallway slightly in front of him. I felt like some strange puppet the way he could control me with the slightest touch or gesture. And I had given him that control, each of my memories a string that ran from a part of me up into his elegant and calculating grasp. Each climax he'd caused secured those ties with increasingly complicated knots I knew I would never be able to undo alone.

Our room was 3110. It was enormous, several rooms really. Everything was pristine. Creams and golds and rich, dark reds everywhere. Old-fashioned. European. Aro looked much more natural in this setting.

He walked around the room inspecting it leisurely while I stood at the door, trying to adjust to the utter change my life had taken since that morning, wishing again I could sleep.

He flitted up to me and took my bag.

"I believe you wanted a bath," he said courteously.

"I—"

There was water running in the other room. When had he done that? I swore I'd seen him just walk calmly around the room.

I went into the bathroom. The tub was large, big enough for several people. I suddenly wondered if he was planning on that and I hoped not. Not only because I was trying to distance myself but because the idea of doing anything that even sounded romantic with him made me feel sick inside.

I undressed without looking behind me and stepped directly into the tub. He didn't appear until I was under the water, hidden under a layer of bubbles. _Bubbles?_

He'd already seen me very naked so I didn't know why it mattered but having him in the room with me made me feel unexpectedly chaste. He retrieved my clothes from the ground and placed them, carefully folded, on the counter a moment later.

"Those have to be washed anyway," I said, amused.

"So we should live like filthy little urchins?"

"I'm shocked you can fold a shirt, I figured you had servants for all of that stuff. They do your laundry and then you eat them type of thing . . ."

He gave me a small smile before appearing in a blink at the side of the tub. He ran his finger down my cheek.

"I could still pull your pretty little head off, you know," he said mellowly.

"Not as easy as you think," I responded, kicking back in the tub and flinging a little stream of water at him. It landed on the side of his jacket and the top left leg of his jeans. He didn't even look down. "And you should really stop looking at people like you're going to eat them," I lectured, now out of reach on the far side of the tub.

"But I am," he said.

"Not in the hotel."

"No, not in the hotel."

"Are you going to stand there and watch me bath then, weirdo?"

"Maybe," he said, cocking his head. "I'm trying to decide if I'm going to drag you out of there by your ankles and teach you a lesson for your sass." He drew out the final "s" in a hiss.

I had tilted my head back to wet my hair but I flailed when he said this causing me to swallow a mouthful of soapy water. I coughed it out, glaring at him. My legs retracted under the water automatically, limiting the possibility of his threat being carried out. I was sure he was capable. I closed my eyes and breathed deeply. When I opened them he was gone. I heard him laugh wickedly from the other room.

I had picked the wrong person to do this with. Not that there were a heap of choices at the time. I had thrown myself—literally—at Aro to forget about my dead family, now I was trying to forget about Aro because the too rapidly developing intimacy between us scared me.

I sat in the warm water just feeling sulky for several minutes. It wasn't relaxing because I had nothing to distract myself and images of the battle started to rush in mercilessly. I couldn't stop them. I gave up trying and desperately tried to cling to thoughts of Aro instead. Of what we'd done, even slipping my hand down between my legs, thinking about us and trying to conjure some feeling that wasn't pain. Even guilt would do. I almost called for him I was so deperate. But it was too late. There was Edward, falling backwards with Felix wrapped around him. They both went down and I screamed, the shield I was holding around Esme broke and two cloaked Volturi figures fell on her immediately, pulling her apart right in front of me and all I did was scream and scream. It felt like my throat would crack open with the pressure and sound of it. Two members of my family, dead in an instant. I saw flames erupt to my left and—

I bit down on my own hand hoping the sharp ache it caused would make it stop. It had to or I would simply implode as the agonizing reminders assaulted me unendningly. I didn't know I was actually screaming until Aro had me, out of the bath and wrapped in a large towel. He was faster than any other vampire I'd met. Fastness didn't get around water though and his clothes were soaked.

He was shushing me. These rooms probably weren't soundproof and it wouldn't be good for someone to think I was being murdered by anything other than my memories. I jammed my fist in my mouth and after a minute I was able to stop. I hung in his arms limply for a long time. He carried me into the main room and set me on my feet by the bed.

I held my towel closed with a fist by my collar bone, still feeling preposterously modest. He handed me a pair of my underwear, looped over his finger. I snatched them rudely without thanks and turned my back before dropping my towel to put them on. It wasn't necessary, he was already gone, zipping around the room doing who knows what.

I got into the bed. Immediately I knew this had been a bad idea and not just because my hair was still sopping wet. What was I going to do? Lie here and think? I had nothing safe to think about. My little post-traumatic stress event in the bathroom just now had proven that.

I heard the room door open and I sat up, just catching the covers before they exposed me. Aro was speaking to a bellhop. I could see his back and the bellhop's face in a large mirror across the way.

"No, no, she's fine. My wife just had a nightmare. We lost a baby recently, you see, and I'm afraid she hasn't really slept very well since. She has pills for it but she hates to take them because they make her groggy the next day. And since we're on vacation . . . " His voice was so completely, warmly sincere that I almost believed him.

I watched the man's expression go from skeptical to understanding as Aro spoke. That was smooth. Aro must have read his mind and known exactly what to say. He probably knew exactly what to say to anyone to get what he wanted. Even me. I shivered. But, no, he couldn't read my mind. He didn't quite know what to say to me. I was _peculiar_.

He appeared at the foot of the bed.

"You lost a baby. Look sad next time you go downstairs."

That wouldn't be hard. I did lose my baby. No. Don't think about it. She was safe and perfectly ignorant of this terrible reality I was living. Safer without me.

He was still wearing wet clothes. I wondered what the bellhop had thought of that.

"Your clothes are wet."

"Yes, well, I don't have any others and you don't seem so interested in seeing me without them anymore," he said, a wry smirk.

"You should take them off until they're dry at least," I said. "I won't look at you."

But I lied, I openly watched him undress down to his underwear which were relatively dry still. Were they Carlisle's? Jasper's? I guessed Carlisle's wouldn't be so strange since they used to be together. I tried to picture them kissing. It was easier than I thought it would be, they seemed oddly natural together. Dark and light. I cut that off quickly, it was too weird to think of Carlisle kissing anyone but Esme, let alone another man.

"What are you thinking about now?" he asked.

"Er, plead the fifth . . ."

"_Americans,_" he said exasperated. "You don't even know what that means."

"But _you_ know what I mean," I countered.

"Yes, it means you were thinking about something you don't want to tell me," he said, he was standing over me suddenly, touching my cheek again, "And since I cannot read your thoughts, I have to ask. So tell me Isabella, what could be so embarrassing between us after today?"

I shrugged. He was right but I still felt weird telling him. He was, still touching my cheek lightly and I leaned into the caress needily. I wanted him to lay down with me but I didn't want him to think I was coming on to him. I scooted back as far a I could on the bed and pushed the covers down next to where he stood.

"Just lay down and talk to me, please. I don't want to be alone."

He slid into the bed, sort of next to me. It was a large bed and I had moved really far over and wrapped the sheet around me tightly, under my chin, in an attempt to seem as not seductive as possible. He lay back, his pretty hair spread out on the pillows under him in a smooth, black series of waves. Like someone had taken a sheet of obsidian and buffed away all the jagged peaks into a flowing glass cascade with impossible depth in its chilly core.

After a beat of silence he said, "What would you like to talk about, Isabella?"

"I don't know."

He turned his head to look at me on the far side of the bed, holding the covers up to my chin and laughed.

"I already told you I wouldn't touch you, don't you trust me?" he asked with what I'm sure he thought was an innocuous smile.

"No."

"Well, you should still come closer, it feels ridiculous trying to talk to you like this."

I moved closer, just to the point that I could start to smell him strongly and then I stopped. I could only control myself so much. He turned on his side to face me. He was still wearing the brown contacts. I would have to take them out soon or they would be ruined. And we'd need to get more unless I could convince him to start drinking animal blood. I laughed aloud at that.

He squinted at me, fidgeting a little bit. I didn't need to read minds to know he was wishing he could read mine then. He reached out and seized my hand, enfolding it in both of his. And now I understood that he only wanted control over his gift, not to have it removed altogether. He just wanted it to work when it was convenient for him, like now. Trying to figure out a person's secrets only with coercion and then never being quite sure must be frustrating after being able to just _know_ for so long.

"You could let me, you know," He said, his voice soft, lulling. His fingers drawing careful, liquid patterns on the back of my hand, like he was casting a spell with his touch.

"I know I could, but I'm not going to." I pulled my hand away. "You can't have everything you want, Aro, you'd be so spoiled."

"I've been getting what I want for a long time. Not getting what I want is . . . interesting. Less fun though . . . "

"Oh, now you have to be like everyone else, poor little vampire king," I mocked. It felt good. I didn't want to be sad, being mean felt nice.

He reached out and snatched my wrist, yanking me to him roughly and then rolling onto his back so I was pulled on top of him. It all happened in an instant and, thankfully, there was a sheet tangled between us keeping our skin from making direct contact.

"I thought you weren't going to touch me," I said, the smell of him making me dizzy already.

"_You_ seem to be laying on _me_," he said innocently. He waved his hands up by his face to show that he was not breaking his promise. I fought not to pin his wrists in that position. I knew if I made even a single move like that it would be over and I didn't want it to be my fault. I slid off of him and backed away but not as far as I was before.

"So what was it?" he asked.

"What?"

"What were you thinking about that you didn't want to tell me?"

"Oh! Um, I was trying to think about what you and Carlisle, I mean, I was trying to picture you kissing because it just seems weird, him with anyone but Esme, and then with another guy . . ."

"_Was _it weird?"

I did not want to answer that. Because it wasn't weird_. _Not entirely anyway. It was strangely erotic. I had never thought about two men kissing before. It was exciting in a terrifying way.

"Not completely," I admitted quietly.

"If you let me in your shield again, I could show you . . ."

"No!" I said sharply. An unclear fantasy was one thing, I did not want to see Carlisle engaged in anything sexual at all.

He smiled and I knew the real goal of his offer was to try to get into my head not to let me into his. I wondered if trying to get at my memories was what was really keeping him with me.

"Can I touch you now?" he asked, offering his hand in a very formal way.

"Why do you want to touch me?" I wanted him to but I was afraid that if we kept doing this I would get lost and forget who he was. It could get awful and messy so easily and he was all I had. Aro was the only thing between me and the darkness. I had never needed a person as much as I needed him. I was aware of how dangerous that made him but there was nothing I could do about it. I just needed him.

"Because you're pretty, and you smell nice and touching you feels good, Isabella, don't be stupid, it doesn't become you."

"Okay," I said and the relief of knowing that as soon as he touched me the pain would recede passed over me the way the sun does when it appears from behind a cloud to once again throw its welcome yellow-white rays warmly over desolate winter ground.

He didn't wait for a second yes, but pulled me against him immediately. It was so good to be held that I hated that I had wasted time resisting when I knew it would happen anyway.

He ran his hand down my side and until he reached the waistband of my underwear.

"I don't know why I gave you these. I hope you weren't fond of them," he said.

I didn't have time to respond because he'd already torn them away. He sat up, bringing me with him and then moved us swiftly so that my back was against the headboard of the bed and he was kneeling in front of me, holding me up by my legs which he'd positioned easily around his waist. He placed his mouth over one of my nipples, writing quick, evil messages there with his tongue. I arched my back, clenching my hands in his hair.

He held me up in place with one hand and moved the other between us. A new, strange lust caught me as he brushed me lightly with the tips of two of his fingers before slipping them inside of me with skillful ease. My body jumped in his grasp. This was different. There was something far more personal about him using his fingers than us just fucking. He used his hands to do other things. Regular things just like everyone else. He used them to brush his hair and button his shirts and turn the pages of the books he read and to write letters and hold his victims and to read minds. And, probably, to touch himself. This last thought made me contract around his fingers. He must have felt it but couldn't have known what it meant. Still, I couldn't look at him. It was too real. He bent his fingers a little and pulled back. I wasn't sure exactly what he'd just done but I was suddenly paralyzed by a sensation that was similar to how it felt right before an orgasm only stronger and it didn't crest or wane, it just stayed consistently at that level as he repeated that same motion again trapping me in an exquisite and torturous limbo that I couldn't beg my way out of because I couldn't think well enough to form words. I looked at him involuntarily and he increased the pressure of his fingers while he watched my face. Then he shifted them slightly and moved a little bit faster sending me almost immediately into a climax so short and sharp and powerful it was nearly painful.

And it couldn't be faked. You could probably fake an orgasm during sex with any guy but he could easily feel me spasming against the sensitive pads of his fingertips, undeniably communicating his ability to make me climax using just an unsettlingly specific knowledge of exactly where and how to touch me.

While I was still encased in the velvet aftershocks of my orgasm he removed his fingers and thrust into me, taking away the too familiar interaction of his hand but not eliminating all the way the uncomfortably personal connection it had opened between us. When I tried to move he took my hips and angled them before holding them immobile ensuring that any pleasure I felt was caused only by his actions.

I was looking right at him again when I came the second time and I'm sure he could clearly see each emotion as it slipped across my face like a series of quick-moving clouds: surprise and fear and pain and need and guilty joy. His own face softened suddenly and he sat back on his heels bringing me with him. He dragged at my hips, gently coaxing me to move. Really he was asking me to give up control again. Only not through submitting my will like before, but exerting it on his behalf to please him. I didn't hesitate. I wanted to do it for him. I wanted him to feel good, to feel happy, to never leave me.

He was so still and quiet that I only knew he'd finished because his hands tightened very slightly on my waist and he closed his eyes for just a second. He mouthed a word but I didn't know what it was. His hand stuttered up my back, drawing a faint trail of moisture on my skin in its wake. My come on his fingers now the ink for an invisible message only he would ever be able to read.

He twisted carefully so that we were laying on our sides but he hadn't pulled out of me. He wasn't moving either though. He lifted my top leg up a little higher on his hip increasing the depth of his penetration but then he just held me against him like that.

"I need you to tell me if you're uncomfortable with something I say or do to you during sex," he said. "I wouldn't feel good about a physical relationship with someone who felt I was taking advantage of them. I can adjust to your needs easily as long as I know what they are."

"Okay."

"Good. Is this okay, what we're doing now?"

Actually it was extremely uncomfortable but it wasn't because it was sexual. It was because the most natural position was to have my arm under his neck and the other over his waist. It was uncomfortable because it wasn't. It felt normal. His hair was spread silkily across the inside of my elbow and the fingers of my other hand had fallen easily into the dip in the center of his back. Our faces were so close not touching would have required effort and holding my head in an awkward position.

I never answered his question. I closed my eyes and let my fingertips float over the contours of his spine, fascinated that his skin which was so cold and unyielding when I was a human was so inviting now. Flawless and delicately scented with the poison of his venom, which was like a drug to me and, I was sure, to many who got near enough to smell him.

We stayed there for a long time. We didn't speak. I kept my eyes closed so I didn't know what he was doing. I could hear him breathing shallowly. He was still inside of me, paused in a partial thrust like people who had been caught and burned by the unfathomable fire of a nuclear blast mid-coitus. Just grey ash, still in the shape of the living beings it once was but fragile enough now to crumble with a touch. When he finally did kiss me lightly, it seemed like he also felt this aura of extreme delicacy. But I didn't let it last. We couldn't resort to tenderness, it could breed the terrible monsters of want and need fueled by caring rather than fear.

In this new uncertain world I was only sure of one thing: we could not fall in love. I didn't feel comfortable talking to him about it. It seemed presumptuous to assume someone would fall in love with you so I simply vowed to do everything on my end to ensure it couldn't happen. I couldn't control him, but I could keep myself from loving him.

He turned us so I was on my back, finally completing the half stroke of our long, still interlude. Neither of us spoke or made a sound. I didn't open my eyes but I made my own movements as rough and unromantic as possible. I infused my touch with wantonness bordering on heartlessness.

I couldn't pretend he was someone else because his smell and the specific contours of his body and the way his lips felt against my skin were all uniquely him.

I didn't say his name at the end but it echoed around my head as loud and crimson as the new layer I was placing around my heart was ice-white and silent.

And cold.

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END NOTES:

That place Aro touched inside your hoo-ha, that's your G-spot, Bella, It's your new besty. I'm pretty sure that hundred-year-old-seventeen-year-old-virgin you married had no fucking idea where that was.

What word do you think Aro mouthed there? (I'll tell you next time if you want to know.)


	5. It Was Always You

**This chapter was an April Fools' Day joke. If you don't want to lose the thread of the real story, skip to chapter six.**

AN~Hey! Busy weekend for me. I've been repainting a room in my house that will be my writing studio when its done so that was sort of imperative. But look, here's a chapter five finally! Hooray! Little shorter than usual but hopefully not too disappointing.

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**5**

There was a knock at five am and even though I wasn't sleeping I had the same reaction to as though I were. I sat up straight out of bed with an unnamable panic enveloping me. Aro sat up too but calmly. He was dressed and at the door before I could really even respond. But I already knew who was there. I could smell him.

It was too late to think about getting dressed myself because as soon as Aro turned the handle of the door it was pushed open violently from the outside and Jacob came into the room looking furious. He took in the scene inside, Aro closing the door carefully and me in bed, still naked with a sheet draped over me loosely. Anyone, even the biggest idiot in the world could have seen what was happening. And Jacob may have been impetuous but he wasn't stupid.

"So it was just anyone but me, huh?" he asked, gesturing at Aro with a sickened expression. "Anyone, even a murderer who killed your entire family. That's pretty low even for you, Bella."

Aro smirked at this but didn't move otherwise. His words filled me with unexpected rage though and I stood on the bed, not even caring that the blankets fell away exposing me.

"How dare you," my voice was steady and cold. "This isn't any of your business, Jacob. And if you hadn't imprinted on Renesmee and forced us to stay in Forks we could have run and none of this would have happened. It's your fault everyone is dead so don't come in here and try to say anything about my life now. You know nothing."

He jumped at me but didn't make it. Aro grabbed him in midair before he was a foot from the ground and pinned him to the wall. It looked like it took no more effort than if he were holding a doll there.

"I wouldn't speak to her like that," Aro said almost sweetly.

"Why the fuck to do you care?" Jacob shouted, a lot braver than I would have done in his situation.

Aro leaned in close to him and said in a whisper I wouldn't have been able to hear if I were human, "Because she's mine."

Jacob fought then and managed to get free enough to kick Aro legs out from under him which only served to get him pinned again but with more force and in a much less comfortable position on the floor.

"That was unwise," Aro said, still calm.

I had dressed quickly during this exchange and approached them. Aro looked like he was about to twist Jacob's head off. I put my hand on his arm.

"He's not a vampire. You can't just rip his head off, there'd be too much blood."

Aro nodded but looked a little disappointed. I saw his fingers start to relax and I stopped him from letting Jacob go.

"We'll have to do it somewhere else," I said.

"How high of a fall can he survive?" Aro asked and we both looked at the ceiling.

"Not twenty stories," I said with a perverse smile I wasn't sure of the origin of. I guessed Aro was rubbing off on me. But I didn't fear it, it felt good. I felt free.

Aro looked like he wanted to kiss me but he didn't.

"We should probably take the stairs," he said.

Jacob tried to fight us but we were both stronger than he was and he was as helpless as if he were encased in cement. It was raining slightly when we burst out onto the roof only a minute later. Jacob had been silent on the trip up the seventeen flights of stairs and he didn't scream now.

"Bella, think about Nessie. Please."

"I am thinking about her. And as her parent I've decided that if Renesmee wants a pet, she can get a cat."

"All I've ever done is care about you, Bella. And all you've ever done is hurt me."

"Yeah, well, you've always thought I was someone else, Jacob. You hurt yourself."

Aro took Jacob from me and held him out over the drop with one hand clamped around his jaw.

"Or you would like to do it, my dear? Sounds a bit like you've been waiting . . ."

"No. I don't want touch him."

That's when I admitted to myself that I blamed Jacob for his imprint. Secretly, I believed he'd somehow subconsciously chosen to imprint on her to punish me, to make it so I could never get rid of him.

Aro was watching at me and not Jacob who he was about to kill.

"I love you," he said, his face was warm and sincere, a bizarre contrast to the setting. "I have since the day you came to Volterra. And if it hadn't been for Edward," his hand tightened on Jacob's jaw and I heard the horrible creaking sound of his bones being bent to the point just before they break, "you would have been mine then."

"I should have stayed that day. I know that now. It was always you, Aro. I want _you_."

He dropped Jacob but neither of us watched him fall. He kissed me possessively, pulling me tightly against him.

"We should find Renesmee," I said when our lips parted for a moment.

"Yes." He kissed me again, softer, then said, "She should have been my daughter."

"Well she's yours now. She's ours."

It was raining much harder now. I pushed him back onto the ground and straddled him. It only took a few seconds to remove the clothing necessary for us to make love. I was being careful not to tear anything so we would be decent enough to get back to our room when we were done. I was going to go slowly and I started to lower myself onto him that way but he grabbed my hips and thrust upwards, burying himself inside of me in one hard stroke. I gasped and threw my head back, calling his name into the rain.

He smiled and let go of my hips, letting his hands slip down to rest casually on my thighs.

"Now fuck me," he said. "Show me how much you like my cock."

I groaned, rocking my hips in a harsh rhythm, obeying his request gladly. I would obey any request he made. I would do anything he asked. I loved him and pretending like I didn't was ridiculous.

"I am yours. I always have been," I said right before I came.

He rolled me onto my back, his face a mask of wicked joy.

"Mine," he said but the sound of it and of him crying out as he climaxed were both lost in a loud clap of thunder. All I saw were his lips, forming the word, reconfirming the truth: we belonged together.

* * *

END NOTES:

Okay. Put away all of your WTFs and look at the date today if you haven't figured it out already.

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_**April Fools!** _

Heh. I actually hate this "holiday" but I've never had the chance to prank on such a large scale before and I couldn't help myself.

And I got a chance to write as close to bad fanfic sex as I can ever allow myself to get. And, written better, that whole bit about Aro thinking Nessie should have been his could make an interesting fic . . .

Anyway, I wrote this in like an hour and didn't really edit it because it's supposed to be bad, I'm hoping that was a little tip off. The real chapter five is coming soon. Hopefully tomorrow night kind of late. Now try to put the events of this chapter out of your mind because the things that were said and done have almost no bearing on the actual story. There is _one_ reference in here to an actual thing that happens later but it's probably the detail you'd least suspect. Now wonder about it for weeks!

Several people guessed that Aro mouthed the word "mine" in the last chapter and I liked that, so I used it here. You were part of the process, dear ones. Thank you.


	6. Forever Forever Forever (real chapter 5)

**Warning: At the bottom as usual.**

AN~*still chuckling* You kids, you're funny. You should have known that unless Jacob harmed Nessie or Charlie, Bella would never have him thrown off a building. That was fun though. I do enjoy making Aro talk dirty . . . and somehow that last chapter has climbed faster in views than any other. Any explanation for that, ladies?

Real AN~I'm going to leave that last chapter because I think it will mess with the notification system if I try to replace it. So five is now six and on from there.

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**6  
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Shopping with Aro was surreal. He pulled me into the most expensive stores we could find, places I never would have gone before. I was fascinated each time by how even though the people inside had no idea who he was, they treated him like a known millionaire the second he spoke to them, his imperious attitude commanded respect. I hung back, but still, my unusual beauty also drew unwanted attention to me and the salespeople fawned on me embarrassingly while Aro quietly recommended certain clothing items I would never have chosen alone, eyeing me in a way that was far more familiar than I thought appropriate for a public place. We spent several thousand dollars and my stomach felt a little watery when we were done. I knew the clothes Alice had stocked for me were probably more altogether but it was the most _I_ had ever spent in one day.

He had it all sent to our room, he was extremely polite to everyone—especially the women, who stuttered and dropped things when he addressed them—but held off smiling much because I told him even the smallest of his smiles was a little too much. I could tell he had to fight to remain stoic and suppress his seemingly boundless natural enthusiasm and as soon as we were back on the street between each store he resumed his cheery disposition immediately and I couldn't help laughing a little bit as he surveyed the city around us with an awed expression. We went quickly back to our hotel when the overcast sky began to break up and patches of sun lanced down out of the sky, the threat of death in their warm, usually innocuous beams.

We had spent most of our time in the room in bed but we hadn't had sex again. He was oddly silent for a long time after we'd finished the night before. He kept physical contact with me but it was passive, a hand on my hip or a piece of my hair laced between his fingers. Occasionally he kissed me but it wasn't overtly sexual. I was grateful for his continual contact because it was easier to block out the sickening battle images if he was touching me in some way, like he was the one with a shield that he shared with me when our skin met. I didn't know how I would be able to ask for this if he stopped. I was becoming paranoid about him knowing just how desperate I was to keep him with me. It probably wasn't safe to reveal that kind of thing to any person but to one as renowned for power-hungry scheming as Aro was it had to be vastly more perilous.

All night I had been thinking about what had happened in the woods with that child molester. An idea had started in my mind then, small at first but growing every minute, one that was a possible solution to something that had been bothering me: Aro feeding on innocent people. Finally, back in our room after shopping I felt brave enough to present my plan to him for consideration.

"Aro?"

He had been across the room but zipped over to me when I spoke, catching me around the waist and holding me against him. "Yes?"

"You know that man last night?"

I was trying to focus but he was kissing my neck and I sensed that whatever had kept him from initiating more sex the night before was gone.

"Yes. Are you still upset?"

"No. I mean, I'm sad about that little girl but we did the right thing. He was going to kill her with a shovel before I jumped on him," I said, disgust edging into my voice.

"Yes, I know, I saw."

"What? You were watching already?"

"I followed you."

He was fiddling with a strand of my hair and not looking directly at me.

"Why?"

"From Edward's memories, I know you tend to attract trouble and while you could handle most things alone, one stumble into a campfire . . ." He smiled teasingly.

"Well I'm not that clumsy anymore!" I knew he was baiting me but I couldn't stop my annoyed reaction and need to pointlessly defend myself. "I think do pretty well in fact."

He pushed me back onto the bed, pinning me under him. "You do exceptionally well." His voice was smooth and low now. "The way you sprang from that tree and landed right on his shoulders! You're a spectacular predator, pretty Isabella. If only you could have seen your face when you twisted his ugly head off . . ." He was kissing my neck again between phrases. He liked this. This cruel, brutal side of me turned him on. The thing Edward had hated. The nature that made him monstrous. Why he hadn't wanted to change me.

With much more effort than I usually needed to use to do anything these days, I managed to flip him backwards so that he was under me. I pinned his hands, straddling him. A bizarre reenactment of our first contact on the field.

"Stop. I want to talk to you about something."

"Well then this is a bad position if you want me to listen," he said, freeing his hands and running them up my legs under my dress. I slapped him away with some effort. He sighed and became docile.

"You want to know why I don't just kill 'bad' people?" he asked.

I felt stupid now for how see-though my objective was to him but I pressed forward anyway.

"Yes."

"How bad does someone have to be to deserve death for you, Isabella?"

I hadn't thought out the grey areas. I'd just assumed he would know when he saw into their minds if they were evil.

"Everyone is sympathetic when you know the whole story," he said when I didn't answer right away. "Even me."

Even him. Was he asking me to forgive him or to pity him? I wasn't prepared to do either though I would likely pity him long before I forgave him.

"Can you just make sure people are like, really not good adults before you kill them? At least while we're together?"

He looked amused. Obviously, the idea that the handful of people he was going to kill while we were together for this year mattered compared to the innumerable people he had already killed before was silly. But he smiled anyway and said, "Okay, little vampire. I have to get close enough to touch them though so that's going to make hunting trickier if I'm having to fish for the naughtiest person around before I feed."

"I know. But scumbags are pretty easy to spot though. That narrows it down."

"Are they?" he raised an eyebrow. He was making me feel very young and stupid.

"Fine. Whatever. Forget it."

He caught me before I could get away and forced me to look at him.

"Why do you make this request? Why not just ask me to hunt animals with you?"

"Because I know there's no way you would do that and I thought as long as people are going to die, bad ones should," my eyes darted away and then back to him.

"If only you could define a 'bad' person for me, I would gladly fulfill your desire in relation to this issue."

"People like that guy last night." I shifted awkwardly.

"He was, while not an entirely unique monster, also not very common either."

"Well, people who do things like that at all. Rapists and wife beaters and murderers. Douche bags. There are lots of them around, this is a big city. And we're not staying here long anyway. There will be bad people everywhere we go, right?"

"Very well. I have a request of my own," he said, tucking a piece of my hair behind my ear and following it with his finger, which continued down my neck from there. He slipped his hand across the base of my skull and drew me down to him, also like in the field only soft this time.

"Okay." I was so relieved he had agreed to it that I didn't care what he wanted.

"If I do this, I want you to hunt with me," he said. We were so close his lips grazed mine as he spoke.

Now I cared but I couldn't respond because he was kissing me. It was slow and deliberate, persuasive, like a silent speech given by an extraordinarily eloquent dictator. Perfectly worded and delivered to incite undying loyalty or murderous zealotry in the listener, to create the fire of rebellion or the placid surrender of conformity. Whatever he wanted.

I pulled away, prying his fingers from the back of my neck with shaky hands.

"Do you mean kill humans or just go with you?" I asked but I was pretty certain of the answer already.

"Both, I think."

"I can't do that."

"Why not? You've already done it once," he reminded me.

"I was trying to save that girl's life, I wasn't feeding."

"Oh, so noble now! It's okay to kill to answer your perception of righteousness, but not for food?"

"I can live on animals just fine," I said loftily.

"Indeed but if I'm to be killing these 'douche bags' of yours anyway, why not make them useful as a meal along the way? There are likely to be more than one around in most places. And I'd be willing to share of course if necessary." He grinned in a disturbing way.

"You'd like that."

"I would." He was running his fingertips over my arms as he spoke. It was nice but very distracting. I fought to keep my head clear.

"Why? What, you like to see me kill?"

"Yes," he said immediately and without shame. "You have an unusually controlled ferocity when you kill. It's enticing to watch."

"That's kind of gross."

"Is it? You're telling me you don't feel the excitement of stalking through those damp, fragrant woods you love so much? Tracking your kill, leaping and twisting as you bring down your quarry?" he pushed me off of him and onto my back, hovering over me, his face a dark invitation into his opulent private world. I moved away and stood to get off the bed and he pounced at me, sending us both to the floor, we rolled and stopped with him on top of me. "Isn't it marvelous to hear their hearts beating," he put his head to my silent breast, "to smell the rush of tangy, sweet blood in their veins," he inhaled along my throat, "and taste the fear on their skin once they're in your grasp . . . " he had grabbed my hair and forced my head back as he said this so his last words whispered out against my throat, right where he would have bitten me if I were his prey.

"I'm not pretending I don't enjoy hunting," I said, my voice wavered traitorously, "I just don't think I'm getting quite the 'kick' out of it that you are . . ."

"You watched me with that girl . . ."

"Yeah . . . "

"And was that repellant to you? Aside from the troubling circumstances which brought her into our path?"

"That's different, you were . . . being nice to her, it wasn't like you stalked her and attacked her down an alleyway," I said, very uncomfortable with the conversation now, remembering how delicate his treatment of her had been and how it had drawn me in.

"It wasn't different. How I behaved with her is how I do with everyone."

What? Like he was singing them to sleep? This didn't fit with my assumptions about him. Or the way he had fought yesterday, with practiced brutality.

"Are you not gentle with your prey after you have them? Don't you appreciate their sacrifice?"

I couldn't answer him because the truth was that I wasn't gentle with them generally. I killed other predators, carnivores, and I enjoyed being able to subdue them, even large animals like bears several times my size, with little effort. I had been weak and clumsy my whole human life, I wanted to be powerful now. But still good. And I wanted Aro to just do what I did: kill other predators.

He had stood and was holding out his hand to me.

"Come with me and I'll show you," he murmured.

"I'll go with you," I said, not agreeing to kill anyone.

His tongue appeared, wetting his lips before disappearing again.

"Have you tasted human blood before?"

"Not since I've been a vampire. I'm afraid to."

He was standing close, with his head tilted to one side, looking down at me.

"Why?"

"I'm afraid I'll like it too much."

He laughed softly. "You will. But you'll be able to control yourself, my subtle assassin."

He kissed my cheek just under my eye in a delicate, affectionate way that made me feel sleepy and slightly fearful. I ignored him calling me "his" anything and moved away as non-awkwardly as possible since I was very close to the wall.

"Um, do you need help with your contacts again?"

"Yes," he said, with a small smile. I was pretty certain he didn't but he just wanted to force me to touch him.

After I had placed the second lens he grabbed my waist and spun me back into the bathroom wall behind us.

"So what do you think, brown eyes or red?" he was watching at me steadily.

"I don't know . . . not brown, you look sick or something. It's wrong."

"So red then?" he grinned at me.

"Red over brown. But your eyes are just creepy no matter what."

"Creepy?" he actually sounded hurt. I wondered for the first time if he was very vain. There were probably people fawning on him constantly.

"Yeah, creepy," I said not wanting to back down and seem like I was changing my mind to please him.

"You don't like the way I look," he said.

"I didn't say that. I just said you're a little creepy sometimes." Most of the time.

"Hmm. Well, you're not entirely precious yourself, you know. As a human you were morose-looking and timid. As a vampire, you're deliciously imposing. Don't you see how people defer to you now? It wasn't only me who unnerved the desk clerk and frightened that man in the elevator."

This was actually news to me. I didn't think I was scary. I pushed him back and went to the mirror. My eyes hadn't entirely changed yet. They were an interesting, but definitely unnatural amber color. My hair was full and dark, it framed my pale face in a shining mass of smooth waves making it seem more delicate but there was danger there too. My features, especially my eyes, had the sharp awareness of an extremely lethal animal. He was right, I was unsettling. I looked hungry.

He was standing behind me, smiling just barely. He pulled my hair back away from my neck, his fingers tracing my jawline, his eyes just visible over the top of my head.

"There's a fierce quality to you that I find quite striking. Did your family never mention it?"

"They just kept telling me that newborns were a little wild but that I was surprisingly well controlled." I swallowed. Had they been lying to me? Did I make them uncomfortable?

"Oh, yes, most newborns. But this is not newborn fire in you. You had this aspect to you before, sleeping, waiting, the venom just brought it up, turned you into this . . ." He combed his fingers through my hair pulling it away from my face so you could see the unnaturally fine structure of the bones in my face, he swept a finger over the clean, elegant arch of one of my eyebrows. He placed his hand under my jaw and brushed his thumb over my lower lip, pressing down a little to expose a hint of my teeth. The lovely and terrible teeth of a killer. Edward thought he was a monster but I never believed it. Now I saw it in myself.

"Do you see it? Do you understand what you are?"

"I'm a vampire," I said flatly.

"Yes, you're a vampire. The most perfect creature on earth. But you're something else as well."

He had trapped me against the counter, pressing me forward as he said this. I could feel he was aroused

"You are exceptional even among our kind. Your magnificent shield. Your shocking level of control over your hunger. Your face is—it's unique. You're something new. Beautiful among the beautiful . . ."

He kissed my neck and I leaned back into him. He pulled the the neck of my dress over to the side to expose more of my neck and shoulder, following his fingers with his mouth. The dress was short like the one I had on yesterday. He curled his finger tips under the hem, watching me in the mirror for a sign that I wanted him to stop. I pressed my hips back into him and his calm expression faltered for moment and then he flipped his hands under the fabric with the quick gesture of a magician doing a card trick. He toyed with the seam along the leg of my underwear like he was debating if he should tear them. I didn't move, both of my hands were flat on the countertop and I was looking ahead, looking at us our reflection, the impossibility of it. He smiled and tugged them carefully past the width of my hips and thighs and then let them slip unaided down my legs. I removed one foot, leaving them looped softly around the other ankle. His hands moved up under my dress, pausing to cup my waist and then graze the corrugated surface of my ribs. He had touched most of my body already but it was while I was already undressed and even though we were alone except for our mirrored selves, forced to watch, it felt like exhibitionism. Like he was doing this in the middle of train station. One of his hands slid up my back and the other down between my legs. He touched me but didn't put his fingers inside of me beyond pushing the pad of his thumb against me and holding it there for a second, watching me for a reaction. I made eye contact with him in the mirror but I didn't move. He pressed harder and I twitched. He smiled again, like touching me there was a game he could win by eliciting an involuntary reaction.

He pulled his hand back letting his fingers relax into a "v" that both exposed me and created a torturous ache there from the still pressure. His other hand disappeared from my back and I heard the faint rustling of his own clothes and then he entered me from behind, pushing me forward over the marble countertop. I put my forehead down against the slick stone but he instructed me to look up.

"I want you to see how you look when you come. It will show who you are."

He leaned forward as he thrust so our faces were level in the mirror, his slightly behind mine. The hand that wasn't touching me was laid flat on the marble next to my own.

He gently encouraged me to keeping looking forward. I did but I was looking at his face more than mine. We had seen each other every time but this was different because this time we were both seeing the same thing: us together. Proof that this was real.

His hand overlapped mine as his rhythm increased and then his fingers slipped between mine, anchoring me in the moments of my climax which he whispered for me to watch carefully. It was uncomfortable. It was like spying on someone else having sex. I was simultaneously an exhibitionist and a voyeur and both frightened me. My fingernails chipped the stone underneath our hands, my eyes were glazed and my lips parted, again displaying the barbaric beauty of my teeth. He was right about all of it. I was a perfect monster. And I was beautiful. We were. I watched my face change in the mirror as this realization overtook me. The fear disappeared, replaced by a disconcerting aura of confidence. I turned my head so I could see him directly. His own face evolved from its usual placidity into a look of bare, covetous want as our eyes met with this new understanding of mine binding us in that moment.

His hand leapt to my wrist gripping it almost painfully when he finished. Then he kissed me while my head was still turned, the way our lips touched like signing a document, an agreement that we would be partners now. We would travel together, we would kill together, we would embrace the tyrannous reign of our consumptive lust for each other.

A few long moments later he pulled away and then guided me up and turned me to him, his clothing was perfectly in place already and he looked completely composed like none of it had occurred at all. The only evidence of it now was my underwear, still laying deflated against the top of one foot. He knelt in front of me, like a fanatic preparing to worship at a shrine and delicately drew them back up my legs. He placed a kiss on the top of my thigh before standing again, letting my dress fall back into place.

"Now hunt with me, like this, while I can smell myself on you," he whispered against the skin of my throat, pushing his thigh in between mine and pressing upward to emphasize what he meant by his smell.

I nodded because I couldn't speak. He kissed me again and as his lips left mine after I noticed for the first time I could smell my own venom on his skin where my mouth had been. I had marked him without knowing it. I wondered if other vampires would be able to detect it also. If they could tell right away that we were lovers by our mingled scents.

He took my hand and led me from the from the room. I followed him obediently through the hotel and out onto the street. We continued silently for many blocks until we reached a populous area surrounding a market where there were lots of people walking around shopping and talking. I was immediately tense. Even with my advanced level of control, being near this many humans was awkward and painful.

He drew me against a wall and instructed me to close my eyes. I did.

"Now breathe in, slowly."

I was afraid to but I did it anyway. I believed he was strong enough to restrain me if I lost control.

It was like passing a hundred bakeries and restaurants at once. My mouth filled with venom that I had to swallow back.

"Concentrate. Pick out the variations in their blood. See if you can distinguish the old from the young. The diversity in the races."

At first it had been one swirling mass of aromas, all combined and layered and overpowering and I couldn't think. But then I did as he asked and I focused, trying to pick out individual scents among the sea of fragrance. A few stronger ones emerged gradually. I didn't know which labels to give them but I could see what he meant. There were different flavors of blood. It hadn't really occurred to me. I knew that certain animals tasted different but not like this. They were like different types of dry bread. This was a world of food as vast as that of the human world.

"Okay, I can smell it. Can we leave now?" I hoped the desperation in my voice was plain enough that I wouldn't have to ask a second time. I was afraid to open my mouth again because it was like the smells had morphed into taste as they swept over my tongue. I had never been as thirsty as I was then and it was nightmarish. He took my hand again and led me swiftly through the crowd. As soon as we were away from people we ran, zipping quickly away toward the silent, darker part of town.

"I'm sorry," he said when we slowed. "Was that too much? I wanted to you experience what it truly means to be a vampire. The possibilities for pleasure inside of your hunger."

"I don't want to be a murderer."

"What is murder?"

"It's intentionally killing another person."

"So killing an animal isn't murder?"

"No, we're not the same species."

"And neither are humans."

"But we used to be humans."

"And humans used to be monkeys."

"It's not the same."

"Isn't it?"

I knew I wasn't equipped to argue with him and that I would never convince him that humans were more than food or, at best, potential vampires, so I just shook my head and kept walking.

We encountered a group of unruly college-aged boys but there were too many to take unnoticed. They reminded me of the ones who had accosted me in Port Angeles that time. The same slightly slurred speech and aura of testosterone-laced malice about them. I wished Aro could read minds from far away. I held my breath as we passed them and he smiled at me in a way that made me want to push him into a lake.

We passed an alley and heard a small noise. With a look we slipped silently into the shadows. After a few paces, we came upon a heap of blankets with the outline of a person just visible under them. Aro knelt and touched its shoulder. A teenage girl shot up out of the refuse. She looked at both of us, taking in our shocking, unearthly faces and started to back away to the wall. Aro reached out again and grazed her hand. She recoiled. I saw her stomach then; she was pregnant. I didn't care if she was the worst person in the world I decided, we wouldn't attack her. Aro stood and backed away, apparently she was kind, or at least not awful.

"Give her some money," he said. I was surprised, especially after our recent conversation, but I pulled a few bills from my pocket and held them out to her.

She was still flat against the wall, looking at us both fearfully.

"It's okay," I said, trying to make my voice soft and comforting the way that Esme's had been. I don't think I did very well but she reached for the money at least.

"Leave this place," Aro said commandingly. "You shouldn't sleep here. You have money now, you can go to—what is it?—a hostel. A place near a hospital. Your baby is due soon."

I could hear the fully developed human heartbeat, concealed softly within her own as well as her muscles tensing in a short contraction over the plump globe of her belly. Now she looked utterly terrified. He had said too much. It was time to leave. I really hoped she would take our advice even though we had scared her. We left quickly back onto the street.

It was another hour until we found another person as isolated as the girl had been.

"You understand now the complications of your parameters," he said. He wasn't being smug, it was true, but that didn't make me less mad.

"I can see that," I said shortly.

There was a man ahead, sitting in an idling car. Something about it seemed off.

"I'm going to ask him for directions. Maybe you can touch him 'accidentally' somehow."

Aro smiled at my immediate and decisive plan and we started toward the car. There were two men inside. One was sitting in the backseat, on the opposite side of the car, staring out at the sidewalk in an alert, owlish manner.

We approached the driver's window. We were so quiet, the man didn't see us until we were on top of him. He jumped and swore loudly.

"You're supposed to go to the back window, dammit!"

"Oh, well we just need some directions," I said.

"I thought everyone had an iPhone now with GPS and—" he had finally looked at us and stopped his rant cold.

"Dead battery," I said sweetly, smiling in what I hoped was a nice way and not a scary way. Aro was taking care of the creepy. He was leering openly, his eyes practically glowing even with the contacts in. I had seen his hand shoot out and touch the man, faster than any human could have detected. Apparently Aro thought that he was douche bag enough for me to okay his death.

All the same, I asked him for directions and after he gave them we hurried to the corner and vanished.

"They're drug dealers," Aro said.

I was disappointed. That wasn't so bad. "What kind?"

"Heroin mostly. Lovingly cut with ground up glass for purely altruistic reasons, I'm sure. They sell to teenagers and the one in front was a pimp for a few years before moving here from Florida."

"Oh. That's kind of bad, I guess . . ."

"Pimps regularly beat and rape their 'employees,' you know."

"Right." But I still felt ill standing here playing God. I wanted the deaths to be justified. Reasonable doubt about evil nature was something else.

"The man in the backseat beat his girlfriend to death with a steel bat. He served eighteen months. An illegal immigrant prostitute is not a sympathetic victim to most juries in your country."

A sudden, fortifying rage rose in me, my face twisted and Aro smiled.

"The man in front may not have succeeded in murder yet, but he will, believe me. I'm quite familiar with the heart of a killer."

"What do you want to do?" I asked. I was as ready now as I could be.

"There's an alley, right across there," he pointed with his chin, "We can grab them and have them in there before they can even think about screaming."

I looked up around us. There were no lit windows. No one watching. Of course, these men had chosen this place on purpose for its secluded atmosphere to do their drug deals in peace.

He slipped his arm around my waist for a moment, placing a soft kiss against the side of my neck. "Just follow me, my dear. Pretend he's a deer."

We darted back around the corner and if anyone had been watching they would have seen two black and pale blurs and then heard the sound of two car doors and then nothing.

Then we were in the alley and I had the driver. My hand was over his mouth to keep him quiet. He was trying uselessly to bite me and his tongue was digging at the spaces between my fingers. Disgust ripped through me. I took my hand away and he shouted, _"What are you doing you fucking whore!?_"

Aro dropped the man he was holding and had mine by the throat in a second, holding him off the ground. His expression stayed calm but there was a hushed fury concealed in it, like a swift and violent riptide under the gentle waves of an otherwise serene beach. The man made a gurgling sound and clawed at Aro's hand. I thought Aro might just crush him to death this way instead of drinking from him but he didn't, his fingers relaxed minutely and he took a slow breath and closed his eyes for a second.

I stepped away from them, disoriented. Aro's reaction to someone just insulting me was surprising and had made me to feel an unexpected surge of warmth toward him. The knowledge that he would protect me instinctively was impossible to reconcile at that moment. A weird pain spun through my chest as though that cool layer around my heart had suddenly spider-webbed with tiny fissures and I fought to keep it from shattering altogether. Trusting him was as dangerous as loving him.

"Don't let him get away," Aro said cooly. The other guy, the girlfriend killer, was halfway down the alley. I zipped in front of him and heard him whisper several desperate swearwords, the smell of terror was thick now. Human adrenaline and sweat.

"What do you want? There's money in the car, drugs—"

"I'll bet that your girlfriend would like her life back," I said, my voice so cold and steady it sounded like it belonged to someone else.

The man fell on his knees at my feet, his face almost as white as mine. I grabbed him by the hair and dragged him back down to Aro who was waiting for me, watching with a delighted open-mouthed smile on his face, calmly holding the flailing driver by the throat still. He held eye contact with me for a moment before shifting his hand away from the man's neck. He gasped, trying to breathe but Aro brought him down into a crushing grip and jerked his head back to expose his throat. And I watched him kill for a second time. He was gentle like he'd claimed. Only not quite as gentle as with the girl. This man wasn't being rocked, he was being methodically vanquished with the controlled calculation of a python. Aro dropped him unceremoniously when he was done. He turned back to me and I could see the dark shine of blood in his mouth, glistening on his teeth. Its smell made my throat burn. I hadn't had human blood since I was pregnant.

I knelt, looking down at my intended victim. He only looked afraid, the fear rendering his face childlike. It was hard to picture him doing something as evil as what Aro said he'd done.

"You're sure?" I asked. A question for Aro but I was looking at the man on the ground who began to shake his head spasmodically at my words. Who knows what he thought I meant.

"He did it," Aro said.

"What was her name?"

"Lucia."

The man began to struggle and shriek for real now when Aro said her name. The smell of urine joined the with the smell of sweat and adrenaline now hanging noxiously in the air around us.

"We don't want any visitors," Aro urged gently.

I locked the name in my mind, picturing her as a small girl with dark hair and eyes and lovely skin. I lifted him by his hair and brought my face to his throat. His skin was filthy but underneath it was the dizzying tang of his blood and it outweighed the revulsion. I whispered the girl's name once and then bit down. As his blood hit my tongue, rich and wet and sweet and forbidden, I forgot all about his dirty skin and his dead girlfriend and the alleyway I was in, even Aro. I drank eagerly. My enjoyment was well beyond vulgar. I bit down harder than I needed to and felt a piece of his flesh come away in my mouth. A moment later, his heart slowed, then stopped and I let go, letting his head fall back onto the pavement with a dull smack. I spat the piece of skin and muscle out on the ground. I heard Aro chuckle darkly. I knew there was blood on my face but I didn't try to wipe it away. My cells were singing with this criminal's vile fluids and I truly understood just how dangerous we were for the first time. I certainly hadn't done every intoxicating thing I could have as a human but still I knew, there was no thing in existence as inconceivably extraordinary as this, no thing as maddening, as addictive, as completely necessary to sanity and life. I suddenly didn't care about anything else. I needed more and I would kill a thousand times for it. I would kill as many times as it took to stop the longing, the unimaginable ache that seemed to have slipped under my skin like a new layer of muscle that would keep me chasing this, the taste of human blood, forever forever forever.

I swallowed several times and as the traces of it started to leave my mouth the feelings of insatiability began to fade. I stood, surveying the body with mounting disgust even as I unconsciously sucked the blood off from my teeth just barely stopping a moan as I did so.

"What do we do with the bodies?"

I suddenly realized how suspicious these killings looked. Both bloodless and one with a giant hole in his neck.

"I kept us near the water intentionally," Aro said.

Of course. I started to reach down for my kill and Aro stopped me.

"Before we go anywhere, we should probably wipe that blood off of your face before it dries."

"Oh. Right. Do you have anything?"

He was holding out a piece of the man's t-shirt before I'd even finished asking.

"Not especially clean but . . ." he said, smiling. "I could always lick it off for you if you'd prefer."

I took the t-shirt and wiped at my face.

"Better?" I asked.

He took the shirt and scrubbed lightly at the corners of my mouth, then pulled me in and kissed me fondly, lightly.

There was still a hint of blood in his mouth, different than mine, and mixed with his venom it was a remarkable new kind of drug in itself. I pulled his lower lip into my mouth, trying to capture as much of it as I could. His fingers pressed into my lower back and an almost inaudible moan came from him. His eyes looked darker when he stepped away even though he had just fed and the bright red of his contacts should have lightened his irises. Then he had the driver's limp body over his shoulder before I even had time to recover from the end of the kiss. I did the same, lifting the other man up easily even though he outweighed me and out-sized me by quite a bit.

"Don't forget your souvenir," he said, grinning.

I glared at him as I knelt to scoop up the piece of my victim that I had accidentally detached. I looked around for a minute debating where I should put it before finally stuffing it in the pocket of my victim's jeans. Aro snorted laughter and started toward the street.

We kept to the shadows, speeding from one to the next until we got to the water.

"How do you feel about swimming?"

I balked.

"We can't leave them near the shore," he said apologetically.

"Right. What about weight? They'll float."

Master criminal already. I wanted to blame Aro for turning me but it had only been a day and a half, no one could change another person that quickly. But if you don't sleep, that's a lot longer than it sounds. And so much had happened. It felt like a year.

Still, Aro wasn't making me evil, he was giving me permission to be the kind of person I already had potential to be. Not evil exactly, but not nearly as civilized as the Cullens had been.

I set the dead man down and began to undress. Aro nodded, we didn't need to communicate that going back to the hotel with wet clothes would draw undue attention. I kept my underwear though and so did he.

"I think a few heavy rocks on them will do," he said. "They only need to stay hidden until the evidence of their manner of death is obliterated. A few weeks. They'll just think a fish was eating at the neck of yours!" He laughed crazily.

"You know, you're really good at cleaning up urban crime scenes for someone who spends all of their time sitting in a castle ordering minions around."

"CSI," he said, smiling. "Although I still have yet to see it in person . . ."

"It sucks, don't bother," I said and I walked straight into the water, holding the man across my shoulders. A memory of doing this same thing, naked, at night, only not with a corpse on my back, overwhelmed me without notice. I closed my eyes and dived because the insane idea that if I looked out ahead of me, I would see Edward standing there waiting for me, was so strong that I didn't want to be disappointed when he wasn't.

I opened my eyes under water. Aro was swimming next to me, the water was murky and dark but I could still see him in perfect detail. His face looked a little confused, clearly he was wondering why I had dived down so close to shore instead of out where we were dumping them. His hair swirled around him in a dark, wavering mass. It looked like ink dropped into the water as it bloomed and shrank around him. His skin was a weird pale blueish-green, like the stone face of an ocean-side cliff when the tide lowers and the debris of decomposing algae and seaweed begins to dry on its surface. I must have looked the same. We were dreadful, devilish mermaids, servants of the underworld, dragging souls down to a watery Hell.

'_They deserve hell_,' I thought.

I reached for his hand and found it too quickly, like he had been searching for mine in the same instant. We swam that way, deeper every second, in what should have been an awkward configuration, our fingers locked while our other hands each dragged a dead body by the arm behind us like terrible, bloated banners, but it was somehow easy, like we were part of the same strangely designed creature, navigating the water with unearthly ease as we raced to the bottom of the ocean together with our prey.

* * *

END NOTES:

There now, better than the fake five I hope?

In the movies it shows Aro holding people for a few seconds like he's slowly absorbing their memories. In my story it's not so different and when he touches people quickly like the drug dealer here he gets a series of snapshots of the most defining points of their lives, things like falling in love or killing someone or holding your baby for the first time, ect.

For the nitpickers: "Riptide" is incorrect terminology. It's actually a "rip current" but no one knows what the hell that is. For common use purposes, it's a riptide so that's what I used.

**CONTENT GUIDE: Sex, of course. Profanity. Violence in the form of vampires killing humans and a brief description of the violent death of a young girl.**


	7. My Pretty Friend, Isabella

**_WARNING: AT THE BOTTOM OF THE PAGE.  
_**

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_AN~Okay kids, here's the deal. I haven't been posting because I haven't had time to edit these remaining chapters the way I feel they need to be. I've been working full-time on an original novel and just the research eats up hours of my day._

_Also, I am actually insane and the mania that assisted me in writing, editing, and posting _Sunlight_ in six weeks has abated and I'm trying to work at normal human speed again which is painful and tiring for me. Anyway, basically what's going to happen here is that I'm going to post the remaining chapters with far less editing than usual and the quality will drop off from here as a result. It won't be joke-chapter-five bad, but it won't be near what I consider polished and there will undoubtedly be errors of every kind from grammatical to canon-contradictory.  
_

_But I figured you would prefer an ending (even a rough draft one) to nothing at all. _

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**7**

It took us nine months to get to the opposite coast. We stopped along the way for only days in some places and weeks in others. Our longest stay was in Baltimore, Maryland. It wasn't a specific choice, it just happened. We'd been there for nearly three months already, living in a tiny apartment above a bakery. Someone had even tried to break into the shop below one night. Unfortunately for him he was also a remorseless drunk driver and didn't stop even after killing a nine-year-old on a skateboard one afternoon and driving away. He was never caught. Until the night he tried to rob an old lady who made pies for a living. That was the safest business in town for those months while two literally bloodthirsty killers who never slept lived upstairs. There was a commercial for the Mothers Against Drunk Driving campaign on TV that same night and Aro sighed and said, "He was appropriately warned it seems," with absolutely no trace of humor. I laughed for so long I was grateful I wasn't human because I was sure I would have peed my pants. He just watched me with a quizzical expression. He often said completely hysterical things he didn't know were funny and had learned to exercise an impressive level of patience with my equally hysterical laughing fits every time.

I knew we would have to move on soon because even in a city this size, the number of people who'd gone missing since we got to town would begin to draw attention. But still I felt unusually lighthearted when we went out that night. It was a particularly frigid one and we there weren't very many people on the streets. On nights like this we had to search out people in abandoned buildings and often went home without eating at all. We were scouring a new part of town. If we killed too many times in the same area, people became suspicious and started to avoid sleeping there at night. We kept to the roofs when we could, listening for heartbeats in the buildings below us. After about twenty minutes, I heard it: two heartbeats right below my feet in the warehouse I had landed on. I looked around and didn't see Aro anywhere. I gave a soft low whistle we'd invented to communicate in situations like this. To anyone else—if they heard it at all—it probably sounded like the wind, a distant car horn, anything but the call of a terrible creature who could bring death to them swifter than almost any force on earth.

He appeared, grinning, in front of me a few moments later. He listened to the quiet thumping beneath our feet and swallowed in an anticipatory way. He slipped his arm around my waist and kissed me as lovingly as he would have if we'd been standing in front of an alter getting married. He loved when I found victims first and signaled him. It was like a really perverse version of having dinner ready for him when he got home from work.

We swept to the side of the building and jumped together, landing gracefully on the pavement below. Inside we found a woman laying nearly flat on the floor. The second heart beat was a child. At first I thought it was a baby until we got close and found it was actually a very small toddler. He was huddled against the wall in a dirty t-shirt too large for him and wore no coat. I had to assume the woman on the ground was his mother. It smelled like pee around them but not like human pee. It was like cat pee mixed with ground up drywall. The smell of a meth lab. Probably not here but the ghost of it was on their clothing.

I wasn't very interested in getting too close to them at all but I thought we'd found a person to help so I didn't tell Aro we should leave. There was something strange about the child. His heartbeat was irregular and his eyes glassy. We had seen a lot of hungry people and while this boy was obviously malnourished, that wasn't what was causing his current condition. He didn't even look at us until Aro had crouched in front of him.

"Hello," Aro said. He was trying to sound kind but it was obvious, even through his haze that the boy was afraid. Aro reached out and touched his hand. The boy didn't even flinch from the touch. It was so cold out here already, he might not have even felt it, his little hand was purple and mottled.

Aro hissed through his teeth a moment later and then taking the boy's wrist he turned it so I could see that there were infected-looking holes dotting the soft underside of his arm. Bright red lines were snaking away from these following his tiny veins along the quickest route to his heart. Track marks and the deadly fingers of blood poisoning birthed by dirty needles. If Aro hadn't been quicker than me, I would have literally ripped the woman, who was still unconscious, into pieces right there.

"Take the boy to the nearest hospital, I'll be here when you get back . . . " he said in my ear, holding onto to me until I relaxed. Then he crouched again and bent his head to look at the boy's face.

"This is my pretty friend, Isabella, she's going to take you somewhere warm," Aro said soothingly. He was much better at making his voice sweet than I was, his words made even me sag with relief a little bit. It would be all right. Aro knew. He always knew.

The boy looked up at me for the first time and then stared, transfixed. I didn't even know if he could understand us. He looked so young. The hand Aro hadn't held was resting on top of one of his dirty feet, the index finger was moving, scratching but so slightly you almost couldn't see it. I coaxed his hand up away from his foot revealing a flat, sticky wound where he had simply worried the skin away with his fingernail.

I lifted him carefully. Even if I were still human, this boy would weigh nothing. For the first time I was grateful for my vampire inability to cry and concentrated on not crushing the tiny body in my arms, far colder than it should have been for a living thing and gaining no warm from me. I had none left to give in any form. I didn't worry about acting like a human too much. He was near death, anything he said would be taken as delirium and I needed to get him help as quickly as possible. I leapt across roofs to travel faster until I saw a glowing red cross in front of us in the dark.

I knew the layout of this town was well as if it were Forks which you could travel from one end to the other in five minutes in any direction. I knew which of the city's thirteen hospitals was closest to that dreary warehouse.

I approached the north side of the largest building where a brightly lit lobby glowed like an empty fish tank behind the glass and after checking that no one was looking, I placed the boy on the cold ground where the ambulances stopped under the lit up emergency sign. I jumped silently back to the roof to wait. There were a lot of small rocks in the gutter by my feet, I took one and threw it through the window of a nearby SUV. An awful siren filled the night. People came outside and the boy was spotted immediately. I watched them take him inside. A swearing man turned off the car alarm, looking around for the culprit. He didn't look up at me and probably wouldn't have seen me anyway, crouched on the roof in the shadows, a porcelain-skinned gargoyle with the face of a dancer in a Botticelli painting.

I listened to the voices inside until I found the ones I was looking for, it was like changing TV channels.

They were describing his condition out loud.

"Yeah, those are track marks. What the fuck? And who would just leave him there . . . "

"Who brought you here, sweetheart?" A woman asked.

"Angels," this voice was so quiet I could only just hear it. "Red eyes . . . "

"Angels with red eyes?" A third person.

"Look at his eyes, Jackie," the first voice said. "Well, I guess they were angels or he would have died tonight. Still may . . . "

That was enough for me. I sped back to Aro. But there were four people there now, three humans. The woman on the ground was still unconscious and there was another woman, wearing the skimpiest of clothing under a leather jacket lined with dirty fur. The kind of outfit that was as inappropriate for the daylight as it was for the nearly arctic weather. She was sitting on the ground, watching Aro carefully but not moving. Aro was casually holding the third person, a man, against the wall with one hand. Every few seconds, the man struggled like maybe he could catch Aro off guard. He was short and very dark skinned but not black. I couldn't tell his ethnicity.

"Shockingly, she has a pimp," Aro explained. "Lucky for us though because she isn't 'fit to eat' as they say." He gestured to the first woman in a casual way. "Her blood is swimming with infection. You'd be vomiting for a day."

"We vomit?"

"Sometimes. It's awful to clean up as you can imagine," he said with a grimace. "Sticky. Anyway, we can just leave her, she's going to die anyway."

I was surprised to find that I wanted to kill her anyway. That boy, her son. It was horrific what she had done. I thought of my own daughter as I often did when our journeys brought us into contact with unfortunate children and my need for vengeance rose alarmingly.

"Freezing to death will be awful enough," Aro said observing the black anger on my face, "But if you want to, go ahead. I'm afraid I cannot."

Aro couldn't kill someone? What had happened to her? "Are you sure she'll die?" I asked, the desire to enact justice and the pull of being merciful were making me a little dizzy. When Aro killed that girl back in Seattle, it had been merciful. But if I got my hands on this woman, it wouldn't be a nice death. In this case, freezing to death was the kinder option.

"I guess there's a chance she'll be found before that, but she wouldn't remember us if she was," he said soothingly.

The man and other woman were watching us, fright making them statues now listening to this bizarre exchange. I guessed Aro had seen that they were bad enough to die or we wouldn't be talking so freely in front of them.

"You should take him," Aro said. The man's head turned to me, sizing me up, obviously to see if he could take me. He looked a little hopeful. I wasn't large after all and my thin arms belied my strength. As soon as Aro let him go, the man darted between us and ran. I caught up with him easily but he now had a gun in his hand. He fired at me and it bounced off my side like I was Superman, flying up into the brick wall next to us, a little puff of dust erupting where it hit. The man swore loudly in another language and turned to run. I grabbed him around the neck and slammed him into the wall.

"This was a new shirt, you asshole!"

Alice would have been so proud of my anger at that moment. I yanked him forward more roughly than usual and sank my teeth into him. He twitched but stopped fighting as my venom rushed into his veins, paralyzing him.

Aro was laughing giddily, it echoed in the vast, empty space. The woman at his feet was trembling as I came back to him, dragging the pimp's corpse behind me.

I looked down at her. Aro hadn't killed her yet. Usually he would have.

"She's a petty thief, that's all."

Oh. Why hadn't he just let her go?

"She'd already seen me," he said.

"But I won't say anything! I swear! I never ratted out anybody! I don't care about Jackson, he was an asshole. Good thing he's dead now." It seemed odd that she would be trying to side with us over the pimp's death and didn't seem to be particularly disturbed by the freaky manner of his demise.

"We can't save everyone," he said. "Sometimes, this is going to happen."

I looked down at her. She had frizzy, dyed brown hair and thick blue eyeshadow that looked like it had been layered on over days, the color clung to the natural lines around her eyes, enhancing them and making her look like she was growing iridescent scales on her face. Her cheeks were hollow. She also had track marks. I couldn't see her arms but there were some on her ankles. We were grim experts on drug addiction at this point.

I didn't want to kill her. I looked at Aro, my plea silent but intense and I knew much more persuasive than hers would be.

He shook his head and I turned away.

Behind me, I heard her scream and then nothing.

He reached for my hand at one point while we were walking home from dumping the bodies and I snatched it away before his fingers could touch mine. I knew I would forgive him too easily if we were touching.

"She had an awful life," he said quietly. "She was going to keep—"

"I don't care."

I was angry at him even though really, this was my fault. A result of my idea. I was surprised it hadn't happened before. Had it? I assumed he would have told me but maybe he didn't because he knew how I would react. He didn't always tell me what they did.

I ran ahead and jumped up the side of our house instead of going in the back door like a human. I didn't feel like being civilized. I caught the window ledge and flipped smoothly inside with a slick precision that would have made me an Olympian in another life. He was beside me in the dark a moment later. He took my arms and forced me to face him.

"You know who I am, Isabella. I've killed thousands of people you would consider innocent. The truth is everyone is innocent. And no one is. The differences are only black and white to someone who can't experience the life of another person entirely."

I was facing him but I wasn't looking at him. He pulled me a little closer.

"You have the glorious cushion of partial ignorance to fall onto after each kill. And you seek only to punish the wicked, to obliterate evil. But everyone I kill is innocent, you see, because there is no doubt about their true nature. I know why they are the way they are. Righteous satisfaction in judgement can only be had if there is room for doubt in which you can paint your own truth. That's what makes me a monster. I know every death I inflict is unjust and yet I feel no remorse. But you are a saint. And so you will always feel sad when the subjectively innocent die. But if you attempt to carry the guilt I don't feel on top of your own, you will drown in it, my dear."

"Then why didn't you want to kill that boy's mother . . ."

"I had already seen her life, I had no wish to see it again."

I hugged him even though I knew he would think I was being ridiculous and insist he was in no way traumatized by the event.

"We should leave town soon. Tomorrow," I said. I was anxious to get away from here and bury this memory on top of all the other awful ones in the mass grave in my head.

"We have two weeks left on our lease . . ."

He picked me up and set me on the table, pulling my legs around him. He smiled at me in a soft, persuasive way I had been trying not very successfully to learn to resist.

We had both become fond of our little temporary home, with its secondhand furniture and lemon yellow walls, the adorably tiny kitchen that we didn't need, the living room that looked out on the street over the bakery. The bathroom had a claw-footed tub that became a shower when you pulled the curtain around it. It wasn't really big enough for us both to sit down in it comfortably but we did it anyway with some inventive maneuvering. It was where we often talked. With the curtain pulled around us and the air heavy with steam, it was a secret, private world and it belonged only to us.

Every morning we could smell the baked goods that would later fill the glass cases downstairs as they were made, the scents and science of their creation: caramelizing sugar, mellow yeast dissolving into warm water, bitter chocolate flaking from a sharp knife onto the top of a cake in flat brown curls.

"We wouldn't even have to hunt for a while. You're old enough now that we can go a few days. It's not comfortable but it's entirely possible. I'm sure we can find other ways to amuse ourselves," he said, kissing my neck sweetly.

I held onto him, my chin resting on his shoulder. Our curious attraction hadn't waned much and I continually watched my heart for signs that the ice I had placed around it was cracking or beginning to melt, swearing I would pull back and leave if it ever did. The result of this was that it ached and burned constantly the way your hands do when you run them under very cold water.

"Two weeks," I agreed.

He lifted me again the way you would carry a bride over a threshold and took me to a chair near the window where he set me down again carefully. This chair was low and we had found that with me seated on the edge and him kneeling, it was just the right height for us to make love. He knelt in front of me, bringing our faces to the same altitude.

We kissed slowly. I moved to the front of the seat, caging him with my legs, pulling him tightly against me. We undressed each other without speaking. We hadn't turned on any lights when we came home and the only illumination was from the street lamps outside. Our pale, slightly shimmering skin was beautiful in the semi-darkness.

He put his hand on my sternum and pressed me back. I complied willingly even though it put my neck in an awkward position. I knew what was coming. This was something I had never done with Edward and Aro had had to spend some time talking me into letting him try it which he never had to do again after the first time because I was as close to being addicted to it as I had ever been to anything. I wasn't sure if he was particularly skilled at it or if it was just because it was him and he was so formal and eloquent all of the time that having him do something so base and sexual with his mouth was indescribably exciting.

I moaned something unintelligible when his mouth made contact with me and the mania of my need for him swirled upwards and, bypassing my frozen heart, wrapped itself around my brain, driving away all the pain and increasingly indistinct guilt about us.

Usually he carried on much longer than he did this time and when he stopped abruptly and yanked me up to meet his lips in a kiss that was full of unexpected electricity, I actually looked to see if we were glowing when he let go of me because my nerves lit up all over my skin like a lake hit by moonlight as a cloud moves away. All at once illuminated.

He was behaving with uncharacteristic desperation and I hadn't even caught my breath from the kiss before he had thrust into me suddenly. I gasped, this weird frenzy of his infecting me too. I placed my hands on his lower back, silently urging him to continue his somewhat frantic movements.

I had excellent control of my shield now and very rarely, I used it to silently communicate things to Aro in public by touching his hand and throwing my shield around us both like a cloak. I didn't usually project it by accident but sometimes it happened during sex when I was particularly distracted or aroused it left me, floating outward, surrounding us in a diaphanous cloud and I let out images I didn't mean to. Usually they were innocuous enough and even just memories of us together at other times. Brief flashes of him as we undressed or a second of his jaw from my perspective as he kissed my throat. A few times, it had been things I didn't want him to see. Times with Jacob or Renesmee. Once even being in high school in Phoenix.

Tonight I felt my shield go and I didn't try to stop it. I was feeling open and drowsy and everything was so nice I wasn't very concerned about losing control. But I knew it had been a mistake as I got close and I tried to pull my shield back but it was was too late, there was few seconds of us having sex in a hotel in some city months ago and a clear impression of my thoughts as we were together. I was thinking about how much I needed him to touch me so I didn't have to feel anything or remember anything.

And I saw a rare flash of vulnerability on his face and an expression I hadn't ever seen before contained inside it. It was naked and pained. His eyes were open, fixed on me, his mouth set in a flat line. the undisguised emotion on his face, real naked emotion, not his mask of humor and cheer, sent me to my end almost immediately making me feel perverse that his apparent sorrow had pleased me. I didn't want him to hurt, but I had never seen him really feel either and it wrenched something inside of me painfully. Wonderfully. He felt something for me.

He hadn't stopped but his face had changed, closed subtly. The sadness just in his eyes now. I expected he would finish but he was still holding me, moving in me.

"Again," he said, his voice utterly flat.

"What?"

"Come for me, I want to see it again."

I had had multiple orgasms with him before but he'd never demanded it like this.

He swallowed. "Please."

I didn't speak, I just moved against him as he thrust into me. I kept eye contact with him, I didn't want to look away from that visible feeling in him while it remained. It only took a minute this time and I grabbed at him thoughtlessly when I came, my hands made fists in his hair, my fingernails scraped his scalp and a long, harsh cry burned up out of my throat.

He let me recover for a minute before he said, "Again." This time is was a little more stressed.

I didn't question it this time. It took a little longer but it was so violent I thought that my spine would break when it finally hit me. The combination of his expression and the way he was ordering me to do it was making me both sick and excited. It was the first time since we have fucked on the ground in the middle of the woods that he had openly shown an unmasked dominance towards me. That time it had just been him needing to have control over something which he never had control of. I didn't know what was happening this time. He was still watching me with that same expression and he still hadn't finished.

"Again."

His voice was dead and dry.

I sat up straighter, shocked and uncomfortable.

"Aro, I can't." I really didn't know if I could.

"You can if you _want to_. And _I want to see you come while I fuck you._ That's what I'm here for, isn't it? So what's the problem, Isabella?"

"You're scaring me."

He released me and stood. The sudden loss of him felt inordinately devastating and I just sat in the chair feeling woozy as I watched him dress quickly. I covered myself inadequately with my arms suddenly feeling as exposed as I would have if I had been standing on a street corner naked in the middle of the day not sitting in my own apartment in the dark.

He came over and kissed my forehead but it felt distant and perfunctory. He went to the still open window and looked back at me. I saw that look again, there and then gone so fast. Pain and also fear and something I didn't see the first time or maybe wasn't there the first time: hatred. My cold heart shrank in its glittering prison.

"I'm not leaving," he said, his voice was strained. And then he was gone.

It was a long time before I could collect myself. I rose from the chair and went to our bedroom. I put on the pajamas Aro always laughed at me for owning, saying I wasn't going to sleep and if I was in bed, he'd prefer I be naked. I couldn't smile at this memory right now. I had a few nice memories now. To replace basically the entirety of my life before. We had made some valuable ones in the past few months. Ones I cherished. Ones in this apartment. Our first home since we ran away. They all looked drenched in red in my mind now, I saw them through a waterfall of blood. I saw us sitting in our tub, turned sideways, side by side, laughing as we often did but our laughter sounded grotesque and villainous not carefree the way I had always remembered it until now. Now I was seeing us for what we were, disgusting killers, horrible, greedy creatures of death. The tub was full of blood instead of water. Our arms and legs, above the bloodline were streaked with it. It was matted in our hair and smeared on our cheeks and foreheads. I watched us kiss obscenely with bloody mouths and then I shut my eyes and bit my knuckles hard, the way I had back in Seattle, when he had pulled me from the tub there. I don't know why I hadn't seen it this way before. Everything we did was colored by our nightly murdering. We didn't deserve joy and we had escaped justice for long enough. This is how I was finally going to pay for my immediate betrayal of everyone I loved not an hour after they all died because of my daughter while she and I lived on.

I went to the bathroom and stopped in the doorway. I wasn't sure what I was going to do in there. I stared at the empty bathtub. I was about to step forward and touch the cool porcelain when I remembered there was a mirror in there. My face was the last thing I wanted to see. I snatched my foot back and turned around. I just about jumped literally through the roof.

He was standing in the doorway. He looked almost normal again. Normal for him. Weird and intense for anyone else. I didn't move and neither did he. We just stared at each other across the room. Then his eyes went from my face to my outfit.

"Pajamas," he said, and smiled just a little bit, shaking his head. He came to me in a blink and kissed my forehead again. It wasn't detached this time though.

"You should lay down," he said softly.

I nodded and he led me to the bed. I sat down and looked up at him. He was holding my hand and I tugged on it, trying to coax him into laying down with me. His face was totally blank but after a minute he nudged me gently and I moved over giving him room.  
We lay on our backs, only our hands touching, our heads turned to look at each other.

"We should leave tomorrow," he said.

It was like being stabbed. He wanted to leave here as fast as possible. Get away from our life here. I didn't want to leave now.

"Okay," I said quietly. I let go of his hand and turned my back on him.

He didn't move and we lay in the darkness like that until the sun rose, filling the room with moldy grey light.

I turned back to look at him finally. He was staring at the ceiling, completely still. It was the first time I had ever seen one of our kind look like an actual corpse. But then he looked at me and all of the confusing emotions from last night were just gone. He was Aro again completely.

"You look very pretty in the daylight, did you know?" he said brightly.

This cheery mood was so ridiculous compared to last night that I laughed out of sheer disbelief.

"You're . . . insane, Aro. Did you know?"

"I did, actually. I believe I was the one who told you that, in fact," he said, smiling.

At least this would be the same. If we couldn't have emotion, laughter was okay. I thought this was all there was yesterday after all. I smiled back, hoping I could forget about what it had felt like to see him be a real person. And I really didn't want to remember that hate I saw in his eyes for a second. I didn't know what it meant and at least this way I could always believe it had nothing to do with me.

"I think, you're on my side of he bed," he said silkily, kneeling over me. I was laying on the side he usually did. It had smelled like him and not feeling like I could just roll over and be near him I lay there, smelling him on the sheets all night. It was like licking crumbs from a cake plate. Just a trace and more torturous than satisfying.

"What should I do about that, hmm? A spanking?"

"Only if you want a broken hand."

"Oh, but I'm so much faster than you, my sweet."

I dived out from under him, laughing, and dashed for the door. He was much faster than me and had me before I even got to the end of the carpet. I was tossed, rather carelessly I thought, back onto the bed.

He stepped up onto the mattress and stood over me with a smirk on his face.

"Pajamas," he said again, completely confounded.

"I like them."

"Well, I like you without them."

"Take them off then," I said putting my arms over my head and stretching so my t-shirt rode up showing my stomach and my back arched, enhancing every curve.

"Maybe I should just destroy them so you can't wear them anymore," he said. He was straddling me and had the tie from my pants in one hand, laced between his pretty fingers.

"Don't you dare! I love these."

They had cupcakes on them. They reminded me of our place here above the bakery.

He smiled. "And if I do?"

"Maybe _you'll_ get a spanking."

"Oh, but I would like it," he said with a small laugh.

"Perv." I tried to roll away but he placed his hands on either side of my shoulders trapping me.

"I will leave your precious pajamas intact. Since they make you so happy," he said and he leaned in to kiss me.

It was a lovely kiss. It made me feel warm and almost like nothing had happened at all. Except that it had. The evidence was pooled in the bottom of my stomach. A tiny puddle of water from a thin sphere of ice that had been melting all night in slow drips, revealing underneath the hard, grey heart of a vampire, covered in the scar tissue of my misfortune, unbeating still but no longer protected from the most dangerous thing in the world. I felt that thing flood in, encasing my heart with a new, lighter layer that warmed it from its frozen condition to something that almost seemed human it was so soft and fragile and alive.

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**END NOTES:** Yeah. Damn this thing is rough. Hopefully still readable enough. Once I get past the next chapter which I know requires a few minor changes at the beginning, these should post pretty quickly from there. _Sunlight_ readers will see the two parallels in this chapter. The bathtub was actually in this story first and when I saw the opportunity to reference it in _Sunlight _in such an appropriate way, I was overjoyed.

Thank you for the lovely reviews and PMs, as always. You guys are just a delight, you make writing for web publication worth all of the effort involved.

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**CONTENT GUIDE: Reference to child abuse involving drug use.**


	8. Your Dirty Work

_AN~What? Two in one day!? Yes. I'd really like to get this thing up so it doesn't get left hanging. Again, holes all over the place. Jump over them and just enjoy the smut. This chapter has one of my favorite Aro lines and one of my favorite Bella. It's short but significant in terms of their relationship. _

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**8**

We were only in New York for two days before Aro asked me if I had ever been to Paris. It was time to leave the country finally. Neither of us liked it here. Too many people close together. Just the sound of all those voices was enough to drive you from the city with your hands clapped over your ears pointlessly. It was too bad because the place was teeming with assholes. We could have hunted there for a long time.

"I've never been anywhere," I said. "Well, except Italy. But that was a short trip."

"Yes," he smiled. "I remember it."

He kissed me possessively and my newly exposed heart contracted in response, my limbs felt sort of loose and willowy. We were standing in front of a movie theater, it wasn't yet dark but the sky was iron grey and stuffed full of sombre clouds. We were avoiding a thin drizzle under the lit marquee. People turned to look at us as they always did. We looked so airbrushed and perfect, it was impossible not to be drawn to us even when we weren't making out in the middle of the sidewalk.

"What should we do?" I asked. I didn't even care. I was teetering on the precipice of being happy and I was content to balance there for now, letting the exciting nervousness of possibility envelope me. Things were shifting underneath us, they had been for a while but it was speeding up. I thought it was only me changing but he was different too. Baltimore had changed us.

"We could go in here . . ." he said, nodding to the movie theater we were loitering in front of.

"I don't really want to see a movie . . ." But I was smiling because I knew exactly what he was going to say next and the idea of it was so preposterous that it made me feel a little giddy.

"I wasn't suggesting we watch a movie," he said and his tongue appeared in the corner of his mouth for an instant. I don't really know if he understood the full hilarity of us kissing in the back of a movie theater like teenagers but I was practically giggling now.

"That's probably not a good idea . . ." I said, trying to make my face neutral and failing spectacularly.

"Why not?"

"Because, it's a weekday. What if we're the only ones in there?"

"This doesn't sound like a problem yet . . ."

"We just have this really intrusive habit of not staying clothed for very long when we're alone. Especially in the dark." I was grinning openly now.

"I had noticed that phenomenon myself. I was getting rather fond of it but if you're not interested . . . "

"I just prefer a more sanitary setting."

This was true. Making out was interesting, but any sort of nakedness sounded a little grimy.

"Just kissing then," he said and then leaned in close to my ear, "I am going to try to put my hand inside your shirt though so be prepared to pretend to fight me off so you don't feel like a tramp."

I gaped at him a little shocked. "I have been a _terrible_ influence on sound like a twenty-five year-old. From _this_ century. Only still really formal. You're weird, Aro."

"I'm remarkably adaptable, Isabella, I'm surprised it took you so long to notice. It's one of my many incredibly charming attributes, some of which I know you are aware already. At this point, I really think it's you following _me_ around."

"Are you suggesting that until now it was you following me?"

"I think you call it 'stalking' now."

"Most people don't actually hang out with their stalkers this much. Willingly."

"Yes, well, you have terrible judgement with men."

And we both fell silent because this phrase had a lot of other meanings contained in it. That Aro and I were together as more than desperate fugitives. That I had chosen a relationship with him. That I wanted to be with him enough to overlook who he was.

We both tried to speak at once, trying to fill the lull before it became awkward.

I said, "We should—"

And he said, "Isabella, I need to—"

Then he cut off, looking out into the crowd, his face was drenched in anger suddenly. I followed his eyes and immediately saw the source of the sudden change in mood. A tall man with shocking golden hair was standing in the middle of the square, he was shirtless and everyone was staring at him but not like they had stared at us, with awe and often lust. They were looking at him the way they looked at crazy homeless people when they weren't just ignoring them all together.

It wasn't possible to not look at him. His skin was stark white and even in the dim day, it shimmered slightly with so much of it exposed. Sometimes we applied a concealer to our hands and faces on slightly brighter days so we could spend more time outside in the daytime.

Aro made for him, dragging me along behind. We reached him quickly. I hoped the people around us hadn't noticed how fast we were moving.

The man was looking at the sky, he didn't see us or pretended not to.

"What the _fuck_ do you think you're doing?" Aro's voice was so quiet I knew the crowd wouldn't hear us. But they were staring more than ever now because while we had simply looked pale and European before, next to this other vampire, the similarities in our skin were apparent. This was bad.

He looked at us, a vague haughty look on his face until he fully focused on Aro and then his face went slack in fear. He obviously recognized him.

Aro reached out for his hand, holding it tightly while the other vampire tried to pull away.

"You," Aro said. "You were brought before us before. We were merciful that time." His recollection was a threat.

"I heard the Volturi were finished," he said gaining control of himself again now. He had an Australian accent and he sounded dangerously condescending. "And yet here is the mighty leader, Aro, flitting around New York City. If you're still a great force in our world, then what are are you doing here without your precious guard?" he raised his arms in an attention-getting gesture and waved them at the buildings surrounding us. "Shouldn't you be in Italy, protected inside your cute little city, with other people doing all of your dirty work?"

Aro grabbed his arm. I saw the flesh of his bicep indent slightly. The vampire winced and Aro dragged us both to an alley behind a Chinese restaurant. He threw the vampire to the ground and stepped on his hand to hold him in place. His face was like I had never seen it. Cruel, mad and unforgiving. The vampire struggled, it looked like he might have been content to rip his own hand off and flee without it.

It was such an unexpected contrast to the way Aro dealt with humans that I just stood there, mutely watching the scene with a growing unease inside of me.

"You so happily flaunt your immortality and risk exposing all of us to discovery and death? Your arrogance is a death sentence. You think the Volturi are gone? _I am the Volturi_ and I will enforce our laws if I know them to be broken no matter where I happen to be living or who is with me." He twisted his heel and the vampire whimpered and struggle against him harder. Aro was practically shaking and his voice was as close to shouting as I had ever heard him.

The vampire turned his head to me, a pleading look on his face, like he thought I had the power to stop Aro from punishing him. I found that I did not pity him.

Aro fell on him, placing his knee in the middle of the vampire's chest and turning him away from me roughly. "Don't. Look at her," he said in a voice that was so quiet and more deeply terrifying than anything before that even I felt a little scared.

"Anything you want to say?" Aro asked, now sounding completely composed. His hand was still crushing the vampire's throat. Obviously, he could hear what he was thinking so I wasn't sure why he was asking.

Aro laughed once, briefly and then so fast I saw only a blur, he swept behind the man and was kneeling behind him now holding him up against his chest, one hand curled around his jaw and the other one fisted in his arresting golden hair. He didn't wait and with a short but echoing cry he snapped his hands in a twisting motion and the vampire's head tore at the neck and came away cleanly with an almost metallic wrenching sound. Aro breathed in shakily, dropping the body and the head.

He looked around now, anyone could have seen this. He rose, maybe realizing how dangerous it was to have done this here, only partially hidden by the dumpster and crates from the street. He came to stand beside me and I handed him two things from my bag. We had carried them from the beginning just in case something like this happened but had never used them. A silver Zippo lighter and a small can of lighter fluid.

Aro pried off the top of the valve on the can and doused the body in the clear, harsh-smelling liquid. He flipped open the lighter and lit it, looking down emotionlessly at the flawless body on the ground. He dropped it and the flames shot up immediately, consuming the corpse in seconds. Vampire corpses were flammable anyway but the accelerant made it go faster which was imperative in a setting like this where we couldn't wait. A pile of ash remained, a charred silver lighter in the center of it. He kicked it around and then turned to me.

"We should—"

"Go back to the hotel," I finished for him.

He nodded and took my hand pulling me back to the street. I looked back once, shaken by what I had seen. And something else. Something I hadn't expected. I remembered him saying how he loved watching me hunt and the stark sexual undertone of his words. I remember how it had unsettled me. But now I understood. And I identified the feeling I was experiencing. It was a fierce, dark lust. I wanted to taste his skin and feel his terrible, deadly hands on me.

We reached the hotel and Aro was so intent on getting to our room that he had barely looked at me even though he was still holding my hand. Finally, as the doors of the elevator closed he turned his head. I was staring at him, my breathing uneven, my eyes, I'm sure, looking overcast and glossy.

"Isabella?"

But I was already pushing him against the wall of the elevator, kissing him in a way that would have gotten us arrested for indecency if we weren't the only people there. My hand traveled down to his crotch in a frank, crude manner I had never exhibited before. He gasped and grabbed my hips so hard it hurt a little bit. The ding of the elevator reaching our floor sent us reeling from the wall and out into the hallway. There was no one around and we sped to our door with vampiric efficiency. I stood behind him, running my hands over chest and throat as he unlocked the door, pressing myself against his back. We both pulled in opposite directions once the door had slammed behind us a second later and then he just pushed me to the floor where we stood, coming down with me. I took his face in my hands and made him look at me.

"I understand now. About the hunting."

He inhaled shakily at my words, eyes were vivid with a sort of frightening want. He tore my shirt and as he ran his hands over my exposed skin I said, "Oh, I was supposed to fight you wasn't I?"

"It's okay, I won't tell anyone how easy you are . . . " he responded, undoing my pants and tugging them down my hips.

"Thanks for not destroying those pants. I like them."

"I know. How do you feel about these?" He asked, one finger hooked into my underwear on the curve of my hip.

"They're not so great."

"Rude. They were a present from me."

"Everything since we ran out of the money I got from the Cullen's has been a present from you. How are you even doing that anyway?"

"That's a little personal, Isabella."

"How is that personal? _Your hands are literally inside my underwear!_"

"Technically, they're mine," he said, tugging gently where his finger was still inserted under the waistband.

"I guess everything is yours then," I said. I had meant to say, "everything I'm _wearing_ is yours," and was going to amend my statement but he started kissing me then in an excellent imitation of the way I had kissed him in the elevator and my brain lost connection with my body in an extremely pleasant way and our conversation melted away into clouds. It was like a spell was cast and we were swept away to another dimension where nothing existed but us.

The urgency of our need, interrupted by our brief conversation, built again quickly and he didn't spend any time on foreplay which he usually did, but thrust into me as soon as the last piece of clothing preventing it was gone, an uncommon moan flying from his lips. He was nearly always completely silent when we got to this stage and his control and the suppression of his enjoyment verbally was oddly sexy and gave me a chance to see him clearly with no distractions as we consumed each other.

Abruptly, he lifted me and stood, pushing me back against the wall and pulling my legs up around his hips. There was a large, framed mirror there and I felt it crack and then splinter when my spine hit it before it crashed down around us in a razor-sharp shower of silvered slivers of glass that pattered down onto the carpet around us like shattered gemstones.

There was a certain desperation about it now that hadn't been there in awhile. It was so much like our first time in the woods in Forks only this time we weren't strangers. And it had nothing to do with everyone being dead. And I wanted to lose myself with him, not in him. I_ wanted_ him. And I wanted _him_.

I wanted us.

I was crying without any tears when my orgasm found me and set my bloodless body on fire with a white heat that seared my heart, turning it to glass in the inferno. I was sobbing his name repeatedly and when he came after me I heard, for the first time, him make a sound as he finished. It was a surprising cry that I would have interpreted as an agony of death if I had heard it at any other time.

I said his name one final time with a full, sweet longing in my voice. He laid his head on my chest, his hands placed easily on my body like it was his own skin he was touching. He lowered us back to the ground and we collapsed in a graceful embrace onto the remains of the shattered mirror which reflected only parts of us in each piece. Some of me and some of him, impossible to tell whose skin was shown in each.

"Why did you tell him not to look at me?"

He didn't answer me for so long I thought he wasn't going to but then he said, "Because you're special." He said it in the slightly sad way you would describe a beautiful place you would never get to visit. Our year was almost gone, there were painful and impossible decisions ahead.

I kissed his cheek and his throat. I put my face against his as though I were going to kiss him but I didn't, I just breathed with him, our lips just touching.

I almost told him right then but I didn't.

I didn't.

And I didn't know how much I would regret it in only a day, across an ocean and farther from my human life than I had ever been.

For now I just held him and hoped it wasn't a dream as fervently as I had hoped it was on the day we left Forks, still strangers. Still enemies.

Soon to be monsters.

Friends.

Lovers.

One.

* * *

**END NOTES:** Not much to say about that, I guess. I'm sure you'd rather I go have a look-see at chapter nine than write any sort of tedious author nonsense anyway.

* * *

"How is that personal? _Your hands are literally inside my underwear!_"

I find me terribly funny. It's really convenient as I have no friends.


	9. The Day We Met

_AN~Another shorty. All of them from here out are relatively short. This story was written before the 11k word chapter days of _Sunlight_. Those were good, long, painful days. I miss them often. _

_This is one of my favorite chapters for this story._

* * *

**9**

We left on a plane for Paris the following day. Everything carefully orchestrated to make sure we flew all night and arrived before the sun was up in Paris, the night chasing us across the Atlantic as though to remind us of our dark origins that we couldn't outrun forever. It was supposed to be overcast there but we were being cautious.

Aro had a passport that said he was a citizen of Italy named Aro Maida. I didn't know if Charlie had reported me missing or if my passport would be flagged leaving the country but as a precaution, I also had a new one that showed my name as Isabella Carlisle. I'm not sure if anyone would have accepted that the person in that old picture was the same one before them anyway. When I first saw our new passports, complete with country specific IDs, I felt a split second of awkward disappointment that we had different last names. Another reminder that soon we would go different ways. Aro was watching me when I looked up from examining them, and I caught him with a very open look on his face before he quickly reverted to his usual vaguely fake cheerfulness. I thought it reflected my own mix of confusing and contradictory emotions but I shook it off as imagination.

As our plane took off, he slipped his fingers under mine, capturing my hand in a soft grip. I didn't look at him. I was leaving my home, my name and my past all at once for an uncertain future, almost sure to lead to more heartbreak for me. I closed my eyes so I didn't have to see the ground fall away under us with a disorienting lurch. I squeezed his hand involuntarily, harder than affection would have dictated.

"Are you afraid of flying?"

"No, afraid of landing."

He gave me a quizzical look and released my hand so he could push a bit of hair away from my face. He touched my cheek with the back of one finger.

"I thought you would be less confounding over time . . ."

"Maybe I will be." A loaded statement. A desperate plea wrapped in a subtle invitation.

"Maybe." Was all he said but I felt a dizzying surge of hope. He took my hand again and I squeezed it, intentionally this time, and I saw him smile slightly.

The airport didn't look anything like I would expect the airport in the most reputedly romantic city in the world to look. It was dingy and old and incongruously laid-out where new things had been done to old parts or added on to expand. It was a half an hour from the city by the metro but we ran instead, getting to our hotel as the grey light of dawn was bleeding up into the sky.

We spent the day in our room, waiting for night so he could show me the city. He liked it here although he said a lot of modern things had leaked in to destroy the beauty of many of the buildings. Also certain sections of town smelled overpoweringly like urine apparently.

"It's not as bad in the winter though. There's nothing interesting out there anyway," he said.

His excitement was making me excited and I paced, eager for the sun to go down. It was raining outside but the sun was coming out brightly in between bursts, we couldn't risk being caught in an unexpected patch of light.

He was sitting in a chair, pretending to read but actually watching me. It didn't bother me anymore when he did this, it wasn't intrusive, he was just "observing me" as he said when I asked him about it once. He wouldn't give any explanation beyond that. Just observing me. Like I was the subject of an experiment. I suppose that I was. We both were.

On what was probably the fortieth time I made a pass near his chair he reached out and caught my hand. He examined it for a long moment and then pulled me down next to him, guiding my legs across his lap and sliding one arm around my waist. He was touching my hand, mapping its contours with the tips of his fingers and wearing a look I knew meant he was going to say something he'd been thinking about for a while. Something he thought was important.

"I have a request," he said, looking up at me from our joined hands. Our faces were only a few inches apart as it was but he turned my head to bring us closer.

I didn't respond verbally, I just tilted my head slightly the way he always did.

"You know when you left Italy and you went home to Forks?"

My back straightened. Why was he talking about our old life? I didn't want to talk about that. I just nodded and felt my mouth grow thinner.

"Don't do that," he said, brushing my lips with his fingers, coaxing them to relax. "You can't block it all out forever. And there are some things worth remembering."

"Like what?" I wasn't looking at him. I couldn't.

He turned my face back and said, "Like the day we met."

I didn't know how to respond to that. I went for dismissive. This couldn't be leading to anything comfortable.

"I'm honestly surprised you remember anything about it. Wasn't that what you guys did every day? Punish bad vampires and kill humans that knew about you?"

"Every day? Do you mean to ask if very odd human girls with extraordinary powers came into Volturi castle every day, demanding I kill _them_ to spare a vampire? No, Isabella, that did not happen every day." There was amusement in his voice but he wasn't being mean.

"You know what I mean."

"I don't."

"Well, it doesn't matter. Why are we talking about this?" I tried to get up, irritated now but he held onto me, trapping me gently with his hands, his arms, a look.

"Because I want to talk about what happened that day," he said.

"Why? Nothing happened," I insisted.

"That isn't true."

"Fine. Then you tell me since this was your idea and you obviously have something to say."

"Don't be angry with me, please," he said quietly.

I closed my eyes and breathed in. His smell, which had almost blended into the background now, came forward and engulfed me, plunging me back into that day in Volterra faster than his words had done. When I opened my eyes he seemed to see the shift in me and pressed forward with his unknown agenda.

"Something happened," he said.

"That was a terrible day for me," I said, looking down at our hands, not at his face.

"Why terrible? You and Edward were together again and you all left unharmed."

"Yes. But I wasn't the same after. I betrayed him that day."

"Because of me."

"Yes."

There was no point being coy about it. He'd already seen those memories.

"You feel guilty about this?"

"Of course."

The anger I felt rising was taking over my voice and making me sound cruel and vicious.

"But you didn't do anything wrong," he said, consolingly.

"Not then, no."

"So you feel like what happened when you went home was wrong."

"I was engaged right after that. I shouldn't have been thinking about anything—_anybody_—else but it just wouldn't leave my head. It was wrong what I did. I felt sick all the time whenever I thought about it."

I wasn't trying to be hurtful, just truthful.

"But how did you feel _while_ you were doing it?"

"What?"

"How did you feel while you were touching yourself and thinking about me?" he asked, enunciating every word. But softly, not condescendingly. Still it made me feel uncomfortable.

"This is sick, Aro. I don't want to talk about this!" I fought against him harder now and managed to stand. I went to the bathroom and put my hands on the edge of the sink, staring into the drain, wishing could dive into it and live down there in the pressing dark away from all the terrible things I had done. When I looked up I saw him in the mirror, watching me from the doorway.

"Why is it sick?"

I looked down again, shaking my head. I wanted this conversation to end. I knew the pain would come crashing in any minute and I wasn't prepared for it. I'd let myself become weak lately. It would be worse now.

"Why is it sick?" He asked again, suddenly next to me, turning me to face him. "Is it because I disgust you? Or because of Edward?"

I swallowed. I had my eyes closed. "Edward," I said, my voice tissue thin.

"So think about it without Edward," he said.

"_I can't._"

"Why? Was Edward there any time while you did it?"

"Of course not! What the fu—"

"Then don't think about him now. This has nothing to do with Edward. Just think about you, alone, thinking about me."

"Why do you want to know about this?"

"Because I want you to do this with me. For me," he said and pulled me to him by the waist, placing his forehead against mine.

Whoa. "Uh, no. I can't do that. No." I backed away and he let me go.

"Why not?"

"Because it's . . . creepy."

"It isn't. It's beautiful. Let me show you?"

He put out his hand just like that day in Volterra when he first attempted to read my mind. Only now the encouraging smile he wore was personal and inviting. He waited.

"You just want to watch me . . . do that?"

"Yes."

I knew the answers to the questions he was asking. They were pretty obvious anyway. If it hadn't felt good, I wouldn't have kept doing it and if it hadn't been good, I wouldn't have felt guilty about it. I felt awful for thinking about Aro because the sensations that I experienced when I did were exquisite, intense. I hadn't felt anything like it before. I loved Edward and wanted him but it felt _normal_. It felt how I thought love and desire were supposed to feel. Nice, sweet, dizzying at times. Acceptable. Right. But this thing with Aro wasn't like that. It was dark and feral and overpowering. And it felt too good to not be a sin.

But I was deep in that territory now anyway. Only it wasn't like that anymore. This wasn't dark. His request wasn't perverse and I knew it. He was asking for me to share something so personal it had never even occurred to me to do it in front of someone else. I thought the point of it was that you did it alone. So really, he was asking me to let him in when I was at my most vulnerable. When no one was watching. When I was most real.

My hand was in his before I even remember putting it out to him. I had invited him into my world now and with this one act of consent he was closer to me than any person I had ever met. I was his now. And I could never tell him.

He led me back to our room and stopped by our bed. He pulled the blankets all the way down, exposing the clean, white expanse of the sheets. He wasn't going to let me cover up. I had hoped maybe I could hide and minimize my embarrassment by concealing what I was doing.

He undressed me to my underwear and said to lay down. I didn't know why he had left them on until he explained, "This is how you were in your room. In the memory you showed me."

_Oh_.

He lay next to me, still fully clothed. Okay. I closed my eyes but he put his fingers to my cheek and turned my face to him.

"Don't close your eyes. I want you to look at me."

'_No. No no no. Too much . . .'_

But I didn't say anything because he was just looking at me, waiting. And there was no lust in his face. No voyeuristic depravity. I didn't know what was there but it was new. Reverence maybe. Gratitude.

He took my right hand and placed his on top of it. He moved both of our hands downward, across my stomach, watching me carefully to see if I would stop him. I didn't and when he reached my underwear, he slid our fingertips just under the top and then paused for just a moment before slowly removing his hand, drawing his fingers up my arm to my shoulder, up my neck to rest on my cheek. The he took my other hand and held it with our fingers laced together, laying back so that we were side-by-side with our faces toward each other, our shoulders not quite touching.

I breathed out and fought to keep my eyes open as I started to do something I had only ever done late at night, in the dark, when I was completely alone. Even then I closed my eyes so I could visualize better whatever I was thinking about. But I didn't need to now because he wanted to see what I had done while thinking about him and I didn't need a fantasy because he was right there.

His eyes stayed on my face, he didn't even glance downward. I knew why when I felt a series of emotions I couldn't control travel across my face as I continued. I didn't know if they were always there when I did this alone. I had never been thinking about my face before. Now it was stripped down emotionally more naked than my body was and I felt he could have easily read my mind just by looking at me. Like anyone could have.

He blinked once, drawing in a short, slight breath and then just watched with his lips parted barely, as my movements increased in speed and my face morphed without my consent into a revealing state of enjoyment I knew must have looked mildly pornographic. Only when I finished did he look down for a second, in time to see my hips rise from the bed, every muscle in my body tensed and shuddering.

His eyes came back to my face when I said his name. He leaned in to kiss me and I just lay there, weak like I hadn't experienced since before I became a vampire. This one thing had the power somehow to drain even my immortal body of its boundless strength and energy.

He lifted the hand that was still resting in my underwear and kissed my fingertips. How it wasn't vulgar, I didn't know but it wasn't.

"See?" he said. "Beautiful."

He was right. Some kind of strange magic had occurred between us and as the immense power that had overwhelmed me began to fade all I wanted was to stay close to him, to prolong this feeling. I reached for him and he moved back and off the bed. I felt hurt for a moment until I saw he was undressing.

I hadn't taken my eyes off of him once since we started. I was almost afraid that if I did, whatever was happening would shatter and leave me broken in a way I had never known before.

While we weren't rushing, the time between when he took off his last piece of clothing and when he slid into me was brief, like in New York, only soft instead of fierce and wanton. I wondered if he was feeling the same desperation for closeness that I was.

Neither of us spoke and neither made a noise. A few times our breathing changed but mostly we just stared at each other as we made love until I was close to finishing again and then I bit my lip and closed my eyes concentrating on keeping my shield in place. That's what had ruined things at our apartment that night. I didn't want to spoil this and I knew that if I let him see the thing I could feel rushing through every cell of my body that it would destroy everything. I wouldn't be able to take it back or deny it and it would change us permanently. It would take away my sanctuary forever. It hurt not to just say it, like some tornado made of shards of glass was tearing at me internally. This combined with my orgasm into a sort of transcendent mixture of pain and pleasure so potent that I was blessedly robbed of the ability to make any sound at all.

That's when he said my name. Whispered, like the day we met only softer, warmer. His breath hitched in the middle, making the third syllable a gasp and drawing the last one out in a gossamer strand that hung, shimmering, in the air around us. And suddenly, my name became beautiful to me for the first time. I wanted to hear it again but I knew that asking that would be as good as just saying those words I was still suppressing. So I kissed him instead and we lay quietly together until the light in the room began to change as the sun went down, Paris drowsily beckoning us to wander its elegant alleyways and punish its villains with our swift and alluring justice.

* * *

**END NOTES:** See? Adorable. I love them. They're the most fun to write of any characters I've ever worked with. I just want to put them in my pocket and take them home with me.


	10. We Never Had Paris

**10**

We dressed quickly, choosing more designer labels than we wore around small American towns. We put in contacts, my eyes were just as red as his were now. He wore blue ones that made his eyes a sensational deep violet color with the red shining through underneath. I chose green making mine a strange brown.

We looked breathtaking together in our bathroom mirror. To me it seemed obvious that we weren't human but I remembered that the Cullens just looked like models to me when I met them. If you didn't know things like us existed, you had no reason to suspect we were anything but unnaturally attractive humans.

He said we should go to Montmartre first. It was a place that looked good on a vampire apparently. He was wearing a suit for the first time in months and he had talked me into a backless shirt and a clingy pencil skirt. I now wore heels with ease and they brought us level in height, our faces lined up perfectly for quick, spontaneous kisses. It didn't really matter what I was wearing, if I hiked up the skirt, I could climb a tree in this outfit as well as any other. He knew now that this was my criteria for clothing. It didn't matter how much he liked it, if I couldn't scale a fir tree while wearing it, we didn't buy it.

I had been thinking on our flight about how different Aro's treatment of that rogue vampire had been and how violent a death he had suffered at Aro's hands compared to how gentle he was with his human victims.

When I asked him he said, "I won't allow anyone to put our existence in peril and I don't treat lightly those who attempt it. Humans keep us alive. I don't believe we should treat with ingratitude the things which sustain us."

The entire city was pink with the setting sun. I wondered what it was that made it like that because it seemed like it was more than just the sunset. I understood the song now. Ma vie en rose. My life in pink. For me it represented an enveloping, sweet with Aro as my companion. His pale face reflected the warm glow beautifully. I reached out to touch his cheek several times, drawn in by the color.

"It's too bad we can't eat," I said wistfully, the smells from the tiny bistros and cafes coming at us as we passed them.

"We'll eat the patrons," he whispered in my ear. "The French are very buttery, and disgusting enough that you won't mind killing a lot of them."

I couldn't believe that I now laughed at such flippant discussion of murder. I felt happy. I had fallen completely into that pit, no longer teetering, somewhere over the Atlantic as Aro traced his fingers over the back of my hand absentmindedly, looking out at the dark sky with a gloomy expression that for some reason made me feel achey and warm.

I kissed him softly, brushing his hair back over his shoulder. He took my hand and I knew he was about to pull me into the dark and resume our kiss a little deeper but the sound of my name, coming from the square behind me, made me stop cold.

A figure with black hair and bronze skin was coming toward us, disbelief on his face. I looked at Aro who was watching me now with an expression that seemed somewhere between pain and longing. He thought I would leave him now. I squeezed his hand before dropping it and stepping forward. I didn't feel safe letting them too near each other.

"Bella?" even though Jacob was close enough now to recognize me for certain, it was still a question. He took in my extravagant clothing, my strange eye color and then the figure behind me. Aro in his impeccable suit, his own eyes bizarrely hued.

"What happened?" he demanded. "You told us not to come back."

"I know I did and I'm glad you didn't," I said awkwardly.

"What happened?" He repeated insistently, looking at Aro with open dislike. Jacob had only seen Aro once but the former Volturi leader was extremely memorable.

"There was a fight. Everyone died," I said flatly.

"Wha—everyone?"

I had totally forgotten how many wolves had died along side us. In a cause that wasn't theirs.

"I think so," I said, softer. "I saw Leah for a minute though after. So she's okay at least . . ."

"Where have you been?"

"In America," I said evasively. "We just got here this morning . . ."

"'We,'" Jacob said, his voice becoming angry as he looked at Aro again who was blank-faced behind me. He had the grace not to look haughty which I was grateful for.

"Yes, _we_," I said after a deep breath. "Only Aro and me survived."

"Well, that's just peachy," Jacob said bitterly. "Did you even try to look for us?"

I didn't answer.

"No," he said sharply. "You were busy, making out with that—"

I flinched.

"_Yes, I saw you! _That's happens when you stick your tongue in someone's mouth in the middle of the street, Bella!"

It was an exaggeration, the kiss was very chaste. But it was also obviously very familiar. It wasn't like he'd just seen us kiss for the first time. It was the rich, affectionate kiss of an established couple.

"I guess I'm not surprised, I mean, you've never shown excellent taste in the past have you?"

"Edward's dead in case you care!" I shouted. People turned to look at us. I turned to look at Aro who was now glaring at Jacob with a dangerous expression. "Where's my daughter?" I demanded, turning back to Jacob, angry myself now. I didn't like him insulting Edward's memory. And I found that him insulting Aro brought up a protective rage in me similar to the day I awoke as a vampire to find he'd imprinted on my baby daughter before I'd ever even held her.

"She's fine. Perfect. In our hotel room. I just went out to—get her ice cream," he waved a small brown bag. It seemed too normal and nice for this encounter.

"Well, at least you're feeding her well," I said, my own guilt at not being the one feeding her making me lash out.

"We ate dinner hours ago, Bella, it's almost seven. So are you going to come and see her or do you need to go be with your creepy new boyfriend for another year until you're ready to be responsible like the rest of us?"

"Shut up. You don't know what you're talking about! Everyone else was dead, Jacob! What was I supposed to do?"

He snorted. "Looks like he didn't like that. Nobody wants to be your second choice just because Edward isn't available, Bella. You'd think you would have learned that when he abandoned you the first time." I spun around. Aro was gone. My still heart tightened painfully.

"He didn't _abandon_ me! _He's dead!_" I was shrieking. People stared and avoided us in a wide arc.

"Well, we're at the Virginia Hotel. 202. You can come tell her all about it when you're done looking for him which I know you'll do first," he said, coldly. He started to walk away and then turned and said, "Fuck you, Bella. Just hope we're still there by the time you decide she's important enough to you to stick around instead of running after some jerk who obviously doesn't give a shit about you."

The desire to see Renesmee was physically painful but I knew once I went, I wouldn't be able to leave her side. I had to see Aro first.

I ran to our hotel as much as I could, avoiding people. An imaginary, panicked heartbeat in my chest. Please let him be there please please please. Jacob's words, ' _. . . some jerk who obviously doesn't give a shit about you,' _ringing in my ears. It wasn't true. It wasn't true. I nearly fell through the door when I tried to open it.

He was there. Standing in front of the window, completely still. He didn't move when I came in. I stepped up, right in between him and the window, making him look at me. I was afraid to touch him. I realized I didn't know what to say.

Only his eyes moved, looking at my face in a slow, searching way, the way you look when you're memorizing something. I felt sick, I knew what he was doing.

"No," I said, so quietly only he could have heard me.

"It's time."

"It hasn't been a year!" I insisted ridiculously.

"I should have left a while ago," he said. "It was . . . inadvisable to have been gone from Volterra for so long. You heard what that vampire in New York said. If everyone thinks the Volturi are gone, things could become perilous for us. Our most important members were in the field. I have to go." He was looking over my head, back out the window.

"No!" I said, louder. "You don't! And that's _not_ why you're leaving. _You're a liar!_" I pushed him but he didn't move. After what had happened today, he was just going to leave? He'd talked me into doing the most intimate thing I'd ever done and now he was leaving, with those images and sounds inside of him like a thief stealing a sacred part of me I couldn't ever reclaim. I was glad I didn't need to breathe because I was certain my lungs had collapsed.

He touched my cheek and I leaned unto it greedily. I suddenly wasn't above trying to make him stay with me out of guilt. Anything.

"You need to go and care for your daughter."

"I know, but why does that mean you have to leave?"

"You have a family again."

"Please, Aro, don't leave me. Not like this, I'm not ready. I'll never be ready," I threw myself at him, kissing him with an unrestrained wanting that I'd never allowed myself before. I all but placed my heart physically into his hands.

He kissed me back, sighing against my mouth, his arms around me in a crushing embrace. He lifted me off my feet for a moment, his hands splayed on my bare back, caressing my spine. I felt something metallic touch my skin, once and then twice. It was swinging. I knew what it was without looking. His Volturi crest, hanging from its ruined chain. He was going back. He'd already decided. But of course he was. He hadn't changed like I had. Aro was still the ruthless, childish leader of the Volturi. Taking what he wanted no matter what it cost anyone else. And now, I'd finally let him take something real from me and he was done. Bored. Going home.

Then he set me down and stepped away fast before I could reach for him again. I covered my face with my hands. I heard a few quiet noises and then the door shutting quietly. I sank to the floor, my legs came up to my chest and my breathing was erratic, heaving. I was making a small, terrible noise continually. Now I had to face it all. The battle, Edward's death, the death of my vampire family. And this new wound that ached so terribly on top of it all I was certain the pain would kill me.

I felt something trickle down my face unexpectedly. I put up my hand and my fingertips came away red. I was crying blood. I didn't even know it was possible. I got quickly off the pristine carpet and stumbled to the bathroom. In the mirror, lines of red, thicker and slower than real tears were running down my cheeks. I bent over the sink and they fell like crimson droplets of wax into the porcelain bowl. They congealed quickly, running together and freezing into unclear, blobby shapes. A Rorschach test that showed the extended story of my sorrow in its clotting, red formations.

There was something on the counter beside the sink.

It was a small white box. I reached for it and then brought my hand back quickly, afraid suddenly that it was dangerous. But it was just a box. It sat there waiting. I reached out again but I didn't pick it up, just lifted the top off carefully. There was a card inside. In the kind of elegant cursive no one uses anymore, in red ink, it said, _"Thank you, Isabella, for showing me your world. It was beautiful._"

Under the card was tissue paper, I could see a small, dark object there through the whiteness. My hand was shaking as I reached for it. But I didn't pull back the paper, I set the lid on the box and then turning, I dropped the box and the note into the trash and left the room, turning the light off after me.

I didn't want to know what he thought could fix my heart without him.

And he didn't have time to do this just now.

He had brought this with us from America.

He was always planning to leave.

Always.

* * *

**END NOTES:** I know. I'm sorry. Not the end though!


	11. She's Changed A Lot

_AN~Writing this chapter is what made me love Jacob Black. He's the only person who's really allowed to verbally slap Bella around and the only one she remotely considers listening to anyway._

* * *

**11**

Jacob answered the door. He blocked the entrance with his body and poked his head into the hallway looking both ways theatrically. He raised his eyebrows.

"He went back to Italy," I said tightly.

"You sure know how to pick 'em, Bella," he said cruelly. "I didn't tell her you were coming, you know, just in case you weren't."

"Of course I was coming," I said, my teeth clenched so hard I thought they would shatter.

"All right, well, I hope you're ready to be here forever now Bella because there's no leaving when you're a parent," he lectured.

"Move," I said through my teeth. I knew my face was frightening because I had used it many times over the past few months when capturing and dealing with criminals.

He must have known he had pushed it as far as he could. He backed up so I could enter the room.

Renesmee was sitting cross-legged on the bed, watching TV. When she saw me she jumped off the bed with froggy leap right into my arms. If I hadn't been a vampire, she would have knocked me over. She was the size of a nine-year-old. I remembered what the other half-blood boy had said about reaching maturity in seven years. Renesmee wasn't yet two and she seemed to be growing faster than that. I had missed so much. She put her hand to my cheek, showed me bits of her travels with Jacob. And last an image of Edward.

I held her close, I didn't want to tell her he was gone. I sought to delay it, pretending I had misunderstood her question.

"You look like you've been having fun," I said with false brightness. "Jacob's been taking good care of you."

"I missed you, mama," she said, laying her head on my neck.

"I missed you, sweetie. We're together now though and I won't leave you again," I hugged her fiercely, protectively.

Jacob had brought my bag in from where I had left it in the hallway. I had checked out of our hotel after changing and rinsing the blood out of the sink. There was no reason to go back. I hope that place would burn to the ground and somehow also cleanse me of the memory of the most intimate moment of my life. Now a joke. A game. One I was too dumb to know I was playing. Sitting there with Jacob and Renesmee, with him gone, I admitted to myself that I had thought he had feelings for me. And I had never felt as stupid as I did then.

"How long have you been in Paris?" I asked, sitting on one of the beds, still holding Renesmee.

"A week. We were just in Germany but it's a lot colder there so we came up here."

"Germany. That's cool."

"Es war hübsch," Renesmee said.

I looked at Jacob, surprised.

"I have no idea," he said. "Nessie speaks twelve languages."

"Fourteen," Renesmee corrected.

"There. She didn't get it from me."

I didn't know my daughter. My chest hurt. I should have looked for her right away. But I was so afraid and lost and I didn't know how to do anything or how to tell her. I didn't speak fourteen languages. I didn't even speak two. Aro had tried to teach me Italian a few months in but it had just led to an amusing argument and then sex. Like almost everything did. Laughing and fucking was almost all we did. Toward the end it had seemed more like making love than fucking but I was sure now that that was wishful thinking fueled by me realizing my feelings towards him had changed. Thinking about him laughing ached so badly I had to fight to keep my face neutral.

"So, where do we go now?" I asked.

"Wherever we want," Jacob said.

"Is daddy going to meet us?" Renesmee asked.

I was hoping it wouldn't come this quickly.

"No, baby," I said softly. "He can't meet us. He's . . . not able to come." I couldn't say it. That I betrayed him made it all that much harder to think about him.

"Did he die?" she asked bluntly.

"Yeah, he did," I said. "He was trying to save us all, keep us all safe. He was really brave."

"I thought we couldn't die."

I looked at Jacob. I didn't recall talking about death with her in any detail.

"If nothing bad happens, we'll live a long time, but sometimes bad things do happen and we have to say goodbye."

She was quiet for a few moments.

"Was it those people who came? Aro and his friends?"

Jacob was glaring at me.

He didn't need to make me feel guilty, I was already being crushed by it.

"There was a fight," I didn't know how to explain it, it was too horrible. "Aro . . . he wasn't the one who hurt daddy. Those people thought they were protecting our world. They were wrong but sometimes people make mistakes."

Jacob scoffed and turned away.

"Where are they now?" she asked.

"Gone," I said simply.

"Good," she said and leaped off my lap.

Aro was right to leave. There was no way Renesmee could have accepted him now. He had come to kill her at first. He had stopped when he knew that he'd been lied to but it hadn't mattered, everyone ended up dead and it wouldn't have happened if Aro hadn't been looking for excuse to attack us and take Alice. And me. But Irina was the one who told him. I clung to that. I wanted to blame her so I could pardon Aro even though he had left me.

Renesmee was at the window, humming and drawing on the cold glass with her finger.

"She's happy," I said.

"Yes, she is, but having me around isn't the same as her parents," he said accusingly.

"Jacob, I didn't have a choice. I didn't even know where you were, I had no way to find you."

"You could have tried though," He said.

"I looked in every city!" I said. It was true, I was always scanning the crowd for them, not sure if I really wanted to find them. Finding them would mean facing reality.

"Sure," he said dismissively. "When you weren't busy shacking up with the monster that killed her father."

I could have killed _him_.

"That is none of your business," I hissed. "You don't even know him."

_'You don't even know me anymore,' _I added silently.

"Oh, so now you think he's different? That he's actually sweet and cuddly and misunderstood?"

"No, he's just . . . he doesn't see the world like we do," I said. It was a weak defense.

"Of course not, everybody's food," he said ungenerously. He stood. "Bedtime, Ness," he said, his voice completely different than when he spoke to me. It was bouncy and fun.

I watched sadly as they did a routine I wasn't a part of anymore. She chose pajamas and changed in the bathroom. He threw back the covers on one of the beds so she could get in, then he pulled them up all the way over her head. She giggled and pushed them off. She begged him to read a book.

"You've been able to read this book yourself for months," he said.

"I like it when _you_ read though," she wheedled.

He sat next to her and opened the book.

She hadn't even said goodnight to me. I was a stranger. A stranger who killed her daddy by telling her about it.

I drifted to the window, it was snowing now. The sudden drop in temperature outside matched the one inside of me where frost had begun to collect in a delicate, fuzzy layer over parts which had only just thawed. It didn't even hurt, the pain was too large to register.

I wanted to be out there, in the darkness, stalking the night with Aro. I felt like a caged wild animal now. I closed my eyes. I needed to take my contacts out before they disintegrated but I didn't want either of them to see my eyes. Jacob was pissed off enough already. I decided I would wait until they were both asleep. Jacob had finished reading. He kissed Renesmee on the forehead and turned out the light by her bed.

"We should talk in the hallway, until she's asleep," he said.

I nodded and followed him.

Outside, the lights were on, and the brightness was uncomfortable. We sat against the wall, facing the door, three feet apart.

It was weird for Jacob and I not to be friends. We had not gotten along for periods before but this was different. He saw me differently for the first time. So I was surprised when he sighed and said, "I haven't been fair."

I didn't agree. It seemed bratty to.

"You had to stay and see all of that and I got to leave. Not knowing anything was probably better now I guess . . ." he said contritely.

"It was horrifying. I've just been running from it. Aro and I have hardly stopped moving. I think he's kept me alive."

He made face like I had told him I was totally into hardcore bondage and was working as a full-time dominatrix. Like he was trying not to show how freaked out he was and trying to seem non-judgmental at the same time.

"How did that even happen?"

I wasn't going to tell him the truth. That I had selfishly seduced Aro to make myself feel better.

"We were all alone," that was true, "everyone we knew was dead and we just decided to disappear for a while. It wasn't a sane decision but we weren't really sane just then." I kept saying "we" instead of "I" to make it sound like Aro had been as broken as I was and not that I had pathetically begged him to stay with me. Or that we had quickly become enmeshed in this seemingly insatiable lust that had nearly consumed us.

"So are you in love with him now?"

"I don't know." I did know.

"He went back to his bat cave?"

I couldn't even be mad. I was too miserable. "Volterra," I corrected tonelessly.

"Are you going to follow him?"

"I said I would stay."

"Nessie and I are fine. We were fine before you got here," he said. I wasn't sure of his motivation.

"So? She's my daughter, Jacob, how could I leave?"

"She's changed a lot."

"I see that. She barely knows me." I stared sadly at the closed door in front of us.

"If you want to leave, you should do it now, before she gets used to you being here."

I wanted to be angry but I knew that Jacob's nature compelled him to protect her and he wasn't nearly as interested in not hurting my feelings as he was in protecting hers.

"He left, Jacob. He had a life there and he went back to it. I don't belong there, it's over and I'm fine," I said, shocked by the steadiness of my own voice.

"Did he say that? Because he seemed to like you. And you are _not_ fine. I know you, Bella, and I'd rather not have another jumping-off-cliffs-to-see-his-face thing going on. It wouldn't be good for Ness."

"I thought you said he didn't give a shit about me?"

"I lied. I was trying to hurt you. I've seen that face he had. I used to wear it, remember? He might be a scary weirdo, but it was pretty obvious he cares about you. He looked a lot like he wanted to kill me when I was being rude to you. And isn't he like the leader of your entire little vampy world and you somehow talked him into just running off with you?" he shook his head, exasperated. "You _still_ don't know how easy it is to fall in love with you . . . . "

Did Jacob really think Aro was in love with me? After seeing us together for less than a minute? I knew strangers often looked at us but I assumed it was because of our strange skin and flawless faces. Were they seeing what Jacob saw?

"He said I should be with my daughter," I answered quietly.

"A little bit noble then. Or more evidence of how he feels about you."

"He didn't ask me to go with him." I didn't think I could have gone and left Jacob and Renesmee anyway but he hadn't even considered it. He'd just left without giving me a choice. The only obvious reason I could see was that he didn't want me to have one. This was the perfect way to get rid of me guilt-free and he'd taken it.

"Would you have gone if he did ask?"

"I want to say, 'No,' but I honestly don't know, Jacob. I hate myself for that. I would have been alone without him, it's scary. But I'm here now."

"You need to promise me that you won't leave and you're not going to go all Psycho Bella on us then."

"I'm going to stay, Jacob. I said I would," I wanted to believe myself. And I wanted to go straight to the airport and get on a plane to Italy, go to Volterra and throw myself at Aro, beg him to care about me, to want me back. To come away with me not just for a year but forever.

"You can't run out on her," he persisted.

"I heard you!"

I stood and started off down the hallway, not trusting myself with him in my anger and thirst.

"Where are you going?"

"To eat."

There was silence behind me and I smiled coldly before reaching the elevator and pressing the button which lit up red, like my eyes under the contacts. Like his. Ours.

* * *

**END NOTES:** Okay, so this is one of those chapters which would have had some alterations had I been actually giving these a full edit and verifying the things I wrote in the first draft against the books/movies. They're relatively minor and have to do with Renesmee's development both physically and mentally. But since I don't actually care very much about Renesmee, I'm going to just not care very much about her being canon-compliant although she does play a much bigger role in the sequel, that doesn't apply here.


	12. Like A Razorblade

**12**

We moved around Europe sort of aimlessly for the next few months. I got to know my daughter again. She was so self-sufficient I didn't even feel like I could do anything to parent her. Except love her.

"I just watch her," Jacob said one day. "Make sure no one creepy bothers her, get her food. She absorbs the world like a sponge only she doesn't lose it all later, she remembers _everything_. She learned all those languages just listening to people talking in the the streets and in restaurants and hotels. It's amazing."

I nodded. That's all I had been doing since I met them, watching her as she grew, developed without my assistance. A bystander to the magic of this unknowable creature I had impossibly given birth to. She looked so much like Edward that I couldn't even look at her sometimes.

It was almost Christmas now. Renesmee and Jacob were out shopping. It was a sunny day. Cold but clear. Far too bright for me to be out wandering around. I sat at the window, back a little bit so I was in the shadows.

Keeping my promise to Jacob about not falling apart in front of Renesmee, when they left was the only time I allowed myself to drift and think about him. I closed my eyes and the same pain, the one that had erupted that day in Paris, welled up and surrounded me. I don't know why I kept doing it when it was so horrible to remember. It felt good to hurt maybe. I let myself remember everything, the dark taste of his mouth, the way he looked as we hunted together, the feel of our bodies against each other. And the sound of his laugh.

Jacob and I had talked about the battle a lot. It was settling, manageable. But we didn't talk about Aro. I wouldn't think that he wanted to and I couldn't anyway. I couldn't even say his name. It was like a razorblade on my tongue the one time I'd tried while I was alone.

I heard the door open behind me. They were back sooner than I expected. I was so immersed in my self-pity and heartbreak I hadn't even heard them in the hallway and I usually did. Renesmee's clear, high laughter was always audible long before she reached you.

I turned around.

But it wasn't them.

It was Stefan and Vladimir. The two ancient vampires who had wanted to fight the Volturi. It seemed they had run away from the fight when it did start. Stupid, Transylvanian cowards. I was on my feet in a second, in a defensive stance, trying to keep my eyes on both of them at once.

"So, he's not still with you," Stefan said disappointed.

"What are you talking about?"

But I knew. They wanted Aro dead.

"Oh, really? Come on, now, you don't need to play stupid with us, Isabella, we know you were traveling with each other in America," Vladimir said crossing to a chair and sitting down calmly.

The way he said my name made me think of the way Aro said it. It sounded foreign and exotic. I swallowed.

"Okay. Well he's gone, he went back to Volterra, go look for him there." What was I saying? Please don't let them do that.

"We might," Stefan said, rushing to within an inch of me. I backed away. "What happened? Lover's quarrel?"

"I don't—"

"Stop!" Vladimir said, rising.

"You were seen," Stefan said, grinning at me in a way that made me feel sick.

"Maybe the humans didn't notice anything going on, but the vampires in each city know how to spot the presence of a new vampire hunting in their territory. They communicate. The police didn't notice, but you two foolishly cut a rather clumsy and bloody path across America," Vladimir explained.

"So cute," Stefan said. "Little vigilantes. You'd think Aro would have known better but people get stupid when they think they are in love. Even careful people like Aro. But he always was foolishly sentimental. And you have . . . such a _pretty face_." He ran his finger down my cheek and I swiped at him viciously. He laughed, leaping backwards.

"The remaining Volturi were not happy with your behavior. Maybe not obvious to the humans but they felt you were making a scene in the vampire world with the bizarre focus of your quest. No one, of course, knew _who_ it was. You were very careful about that. Impressively so. Then when you were spotted, in that city, _Baltimore_," my dead heart jumped, that was where we found that little boy, where we lived, where I had seen him feel for a few heartbreaking moments, "and a description was given: A young female newborn and a man with long dark hair and a strange accent, well, people began to figure it out. They watched for you in every city. Some of them ready to attack you if necessary but you were lucky, maybe, that the ones who finally did spot you in Philadelphia recognized Aro and didn't dare cross him. But the secret was out. It wasn't hard to guess who you were, your shield already legendary," Vladimir finished.

"And maybe they didn't want to interrupt you, you seemed _busy_ I guess . . . " Stefan said laughingly.

Philadelphia. Aro and I had stayed only one night on our way to New York. We hunted and found someone earlier than usual. Then we had made love in a tree, giggling, trying not to fall. I wouldn't ever forget that night. It was the night I finally admitted to myself that I loved him. I had let the words surface in my mind where they glowed like a crimson brand that tortured me sweetly every day after. Now it was tainted by the fact that we had been recognized, probably turned in to the remaining Volturi. I was seized by terror suddenly, not knowing what they done to Aro when he returned. Did they kill him? He could have been dead this whole time and while I was only mourning the loss of us, I should have been mourning the loss his existence. Sickness descended on me and I swayed on the spot.

"When you see your boyfriend again, tell him we know how few his numbers are now, and we're still waiting patiently for our chance to repay him," Stefan said.

"So he's alive?" I said unable to stop myself.

"We don't know. We thought he was with you, remember?" Vladimir said. "But Aro is very slippery. I'm sure he was able to slide right over any complications if he did indeed go back to Volterra as you claim."

It had never occurred to me that he had done anything else. Now I felt sick all over again wondering if he was just trying to get away from me.

Before I could ask any more questions, they were gone. I stood in the same spot until Jacob and Renesmee returned, staring blankly at the door. I was afraid if I moved, I would collapse.

Jacob came in first. He was laughing until he saw me. I'm sure I looked completely frightening. I felt frightening. If I had thought I could win the fight, I would have chased Vladimir and Stefan down and torn them to bits myself. They were going to hurt Aro. I couldn't let them. It didn't matter if he didn't love me, I loved him.

Jacob lightly told Nessie she needed to go wrap their presents quickly so they stayed a surprise. He shooed her into the other room and came to me quickly. He grabbed my arm and shook me when I didn't look at him.

"What happened?"

"Do you remember those vampires that came before the fight in Forks? You called them Dracula one and two?"

"Of course I do, they were pretty memorable."

"They were here."

He was alert immediately. "We have to leave. Now."

"No, it's fine. They don't want us. They're after Aro," I said fearfully.

"So they're following you then?"

"No, I told them where he went and they left," there was pain in my voice that he didn't miss.

He looked at me for a long time. "After Christmas, okay?"

"What?"

"It wouldn't be the first time you ran off to Italy to save your arrogant vampire boyfriend," he said but there was affection in his voice.

"I said I wouldn't leave . . ."

"Nessie is fine, you won't be gone forever, right?"

"No," I couldn't believe he was saying this, telling me I should go to Aro. But after Christmas. That was two days. What if they got there first? They didn't sound like they were ready yet though. And if the Volturi had decided to kill him, he was dead already. I couldn't think about that. He was alive. I had to see him.

I tried to enjoy the next two days. Forcing enthusiasm over our small tree and the pile of presents. I had bought things for both of them when I went out at night.

Renesmee gave me a locket, like the one I had given her the night before the battle. But inside there was a picture of us. Me, Jacob and her. It was taken in Switzerland, outside of a park by a kind old man only Renesmee could understand even though they claimed he was speaking English. I kissed her cheek and hugged her. Now I would be taking them with me to Italy.

I thought about the box I had thrown away. Now I regretted it. What if there was something inside of it that was important that I needed to know now? It didn't seem like he would have left me something as frivolous as jewelry.

It didn't matter. Nothing would stop me from going to Volterra. I just needed to see his face, still attached to his body and tell him what Stefan and Vladimir had said and then I could come back and start working on forgetting him so I didn't slowly petrify internally and become a true dead person walking.

I had stayed out most of the night on Christmas Eve, I knew I would pace the apartment endlessly if I waited inside while they slept.

I flew out the next night, after they went to bed. We told Renesmee after Christmas dinner. She just hugged me and placed her hand on my cheek. I saw a stream of images. Our time together through her eyes.

I was so anxious boarding the plane that my hand shook when I tried to hand the gate agent my ticket.

"Afraid of flying?" She asked brightly.

"No, afraid of landing."

She cocked her head and gave me back my ticket.

The flight was only two hours. I flew into Rome instead of Pisa which was actually closer because it avoided a layover. I couldn't handle the thought of pacing in an airport for more than an hour. It was midnight when I landed. I got out of sight of the airport and then I started running. It was still an hour and a half before I saw the stone walls and red roofs of Volterra rise from the darkness.

I didn't need to know the way when I entered the city. The streets all flowed toward the castle.

I saw the clock tower, overlooking the square where Edward tried to commit suicide, its face pale in the dark, it was nearly two am. I didn't really know what they did at night. Did they just carry on doing whatever they usually did? I ran through the doors and toward the elevator I knew was to the left. I met no one. It would have made me nervous as a human. Now I didn't care. I was so close, I would see him any minute.

I bounced on the balls of my feet as the elevator moved up far too slowly. Then I was in the hallway heading to the throne room. A human girl was seated at the desk, she rose to greet me but fell silent at the look I gave her.

"Aro," I said. It was a command.

She pointed, mute to the large doors. Maybe I was as scary as Aro claimed. I started for the doors and heard the girl say, "But he's busy," with no conviction. I walked swiftly to the doors, suddenly I was furious. I might hurt him when I finally got my hands on him.

I shoved the door and it opened easily and hit the marble wall with an impressive crack. There were two people in the room. A blonde man in a dark suit and Aro seated in the middle chair on the dais. Only now there were no other chairs. Marcus and Caius' places were gone forever and empty chairs did not stand monument to them.

The man looked up. He was human. Aro didn't look though. He was talking very deliberately to the man who now scrambled to keep up. Only when he'd finished talking and dismissed him did he looked at me, now standing stupidly in the middle of the room, the drama of my entrance all wasted.

As though he had just noticed me he smiled and said, "Isabella, how _nice_ to see you!" He stepped down from his chair and came to me. He grabbed my hand in both of his and pressed it briefly before dropping it. Acquaintances.

"What can I do for you?"

I felt ridiculous. What, did I think I was coming to tell him something he didn't know? To somehow save him? Aro didn't need rescue. Everyone else needed it from him. Anyone could be a victim. Even me, my heart already one. I felt it break a little more at the blank expression he was wearing. This was not the man who had kissed me in Paris.

"I—V—Vladimir and Stefan. They came to my house," I started, my words all forced out around the tightness in my throat.

I thought I saw a flicker in his expression. His eyes were nearly black like he hadn't eaten in a week. His face was a bit drawn. But he just stared at me without responding in any way.

"They were looking for you. I told them you had gone months ago. They said," I lowered my voice even though we were alone, "we were seen in America."

He blinked slowly but nothing else.

"They want you dead and they said that they knew you weren't as strong now because you didn't have as many people," he was still just staring at me, it was like I wasn't talking at all, or maybe not even there at all. "They said the remaining Volturi were mad at us. I thought—"

He knew all of this. I was an idiot.

"Well, that was very thoughtful of you but I don't think I have anything to fear from Vladimir and Stefan. They're bumbling for two vampires as old as they."

Very thoughtful? What was his problem? He must have seen the anger rise in my face again because he backed up and started toward his chair again. I launched myself at him, a feral cry coming from me. I didn't know what I was going to do when I reached him. Kiss him, hit him, try to tear his smug, cruel head from his body. But he stopped me easily before I was even close. He simply put out his hand and caught my shoulder, holding me away at arm's length. His mouth twitched but he said nothing.

Before he could pull away I grabbed his wrist with both hands and pushed my shield outward to envelope us both. I fed him images.

_Us laughing. _

_Us kissing in a bed with maroon colored sheets, our pale skin shocking against the red. _

_His face in the moonlight._

_Our first touch in this room and the smell of him that drew me, made me want to be in his arms against reason. _

_My first kill when I nearly twisted that man's head off. _

_Our final kiss in Paris, from my perspective. My abandon, my need. _

_My face in the mirror, wet and sticky with blood, wearing the clothes he had left me in, now stained with my unusual tears._

He wrenched his arm away and it felt like he'd taken my heart from my chest in the same motion. Then he started back toward his chair like nothing had happened, leaving me standing desolate in the middle of the room. He sat again, placing his hands carefully on the arms of the chair and breathing out once.

"Unless there is anything else, I really do have other work to be doing. Do call next time before you come. Or knock at least, that door is very old," he said coldly.

I thought I was about to experience that vomiting thing he had mentioned once. I put my hand to my mouth and spun, hurrying from the room. I tried to stay composed, tried not to run and just barely succeeded.

He didn't love me.

He didn't love anyone.

I was a fool.

* * *

**END NOTES:** You think that's bad, in the original concept he was kissing some skank when she walks in. But yeah, this is still bad. And now I will leave you there for a while so I can work on my "real" novel. Sigh. You can go ahead and tell me you hate me. As long as you're reviewing, I'm happy.


	13. I Thought I Asked You to Knock

**13**

I was down at the entrance. I had taken a set of spiral stairs instead of the elevator that multiplied my footfalls into an echoing clatter, like hail coming down. I was standing in the archway under the clock, looking out at the dark square. I would have to hide out for a day before I could take another flight home. It was too close to morning. For a second, I thought I might do what Edward had planned in this very place and just step into the daylight, make them kill me. I wondered if he would tear my head off himself. He certainly seemed indifferent about my existence.

"I thought you came to take him away." A voice said behind me. The accent was strange, unplaceable and thick.

I turned to see a tall, beautiful vampire woman with long red hair. She was obscenely curvy and she had the smoothest, most spectacular skin I had yet seen on any vampire. I had an insane and nearly overwhelming desire to touch her and the urge was so strong my hand actually rose from my side slightly before I realized what I was doing and dropped it, stiffening my elbows to keep myself from doing it again. She had a haughty face but she didn't look cruel. Her eyes were a bright crimson that you would think would clash with her hair but it didn't. The combination of the two made it appear as though her body was filled with flame and it was just escaping silently through her hair and eyes. She was physically the most overpowering person I had ever encountered, human or vampire.

"I'm sorry?" I said and heard how common and ugly my own voice sounded now.

"We haven't been introduced," she extended her hand and I took it awkwardly. The skin on her hand felt just as incredible as it looked. It was like touching milk. I forced myself to let go.

"Usually he's good at introducing guests."

I wasn't sure what was going on. From her initial statement, she seemed to already know who I was.

"I wasn't actually anticipated. I just sort of burst in," I muttered.

"That's what the girl upstairs said," she responded. "I figured there was only one person brave enough to storm into a room with Aro in it and in such a high temper."

I looked down, embarrassed.

"I like that," she said and when I looked at her again, she was smiling. "He needs to be put in his place."

I scoffed. Like anyone could. The selfish bastard.

"I'm Sulpicia."

_Aro's wife!_

Now I was afraid. I actually took a step back.

"It's okay," she said calmly. "I intend you no harm. I was actually hoping you'd help us but it seems you've already given up . . . "

I wanted to say something, say it wasn't my fault he was an asshole.

"I . . . what do you want? He wouldn't even talk to me. How could I possibly help you?"

"By taking Aro away from Volterra," she said.

"What? Why?" I was feeling dizzy.

"Because, he's not only useless now, he's miserable here. I wasn't sure why at first. He wouldn't tell me anything when he first came back. Everyone had been keeping the rumors about you quiet from me for what I'm sure seemed like obvious reasons to them."

I couldn't look at her.

"But eventually," she continued, "I learned the truth and then it seemed _so_ obvious. Aro gets restless and moody when he doesn't get something he wants. And when he's lost something he had, well, he would put any teenage girl in the world to shame with his tantrums and moping."

It was a comic picture. For one mad second I saw him in a pink room, face down on a bed, ankles crossed, writing in a diary with a feather-topped pen. I almost laughed.

"His first kill here was the first real sign that he had changed. He's a gentle killer usually I'm sure you know. This time, he broke every bone in that woman's upper body as he fed and instead of draining her completely he snapped her neck at the last minute before dropping her and leaving the room. He hasn't fed with anyone else since."

I shuddered. All the mirth from the teenage girl Aro fantasy gone.

"I still don't know what you want me to do."

"I want you to take Aro and leave Volterra," she said again, firmly but not unkindly.

"But he doesn't want to go anywhere with me. He wouldn't even let me come near him. He . . . hates me." I sounded so pathetic I wanted to slap myself.

"When Aro, Marcus and Caius left and did not return, we had to recreate our system of government. Without Aro to read minds and ensure guilt, we began to hold trials. People prefer it and we have continued. Volterra and the Volturi are run by committee now. Aro is a figurehead. His appearance of power is still valuable in some ways but he isn't helping us here and in some ways he's hindering our progress with his legendary stubbornness and arrogance. You lived together for nearly a year so I know that you must already know that he is a spoiled brat and really just needs someone who can tell him to shut up."

"But he told me he doesn't want to go with me, I can't make Aro go anywhere anymore than anyone else could . . ."

"You could," she said infuriatingly.

"How then!?" I was shouting at her but I didn't care. This whole thing was baffling.

"By telling him the truth."

"Which is?"

"That you love him."

This was his wife?

"I . . . but he doesn't _care_. You didn't see the way he looked at me," I shivered at the memory.

"He does. I've known him longer so you'll have to trust me, he loves you." There wasn't a trace of pain in her voice, only conviction.

Stefan had said it a few days ago but he was just being condescending. And Jacob had told me but I shook it off because Aro had just left and I couldn't understand why he would if what Jacob was saying was true. And they didn't _know_ Aro. Sulpicia knew him. I wanted to believe her. But what if she was just trying to get rid of him so she could have the power? I looked her face over carefully. That didn't feel right. Whatever her eventual motives were, I sensed she was telling me the truth.

"Then why did treat me like I meant nothing?" I sounded silly.

"He knows his life here is over. But he can't let go of it. Give him a reason. You have nothing to lose if you believe he has already rejected you." Her voice was so comforting and melodious that I wanted to hug her fiercely. I didn't.

She was right. I felt like I had already told him through our memories but he could get away from that too easily. I looked at her once more.

"Why?"

"I would rather have Aro happy than keep him somewhere he no longer belongs out of misguided obligation. He's a creature of the night now. Wild, like you. I would prefer if the two of you were more careful though in the future, I would hate to have to kill either one of you, your face is just as pretty as everyone has been saying," she said mildly.

Having a person as stunning as she was compliment any part of my looks was exhilarating. I could to this. I would make him listen. Excitement building again I made for the stairs I had just come down. I heard her laugh behind me. It was a nice laugh. Melodic and light. I hadn't even thanked her for her bizarrely selfless pep talk. I would do it later whether or not this worked.

The girl at the desk was gone. For the second time in less than a half an hour, I burst through the doors to the throne room. The girl was standing to Aro's right, taking notes on a small pad. She looked up, clearly frightened at the sight of me coming back again. She started to move but Aro caught her arm, still talking, he stared at her until she began writing again. He was ignoring me like before.

I recalled Sulpicia's words and gathered courage. I made straight for the dais and mounted it so I was standing right in front of his chair. The girl had stopped writing again. I turned just my head to her.

"Get out," I said in a voice that was low and quiet. Almost a whisper and extremely unsettling.

So scared she was shaking, she looked from me to Aro, trying to decide who was more likely to kill her for disobeying. Irritated, he flicked his hand at her and she practically flew down the steps, dropping her pad and pen and then scrambling after them on the floor awkwardly in her tight skirt and ridiculous heels. Aro breathed out in a frustrated huff.

"I thought I asked you to knock, Isabel—"

"I love you."

I heard the secretary gasp behind me. I didn't look. I was looking right down at him, my face set. He was staring at me, shocked, like I had slapped him. I might if he didn't listen and stop acting like he didn't even know me.

"I—what?"

"I _love_ you," I said again, firmly. Sulpicia had said to just tell him. What else could I say? He knew the story as well as I did.

He opened his mouth and then closed it and swallowed. I waited. He was going to have to reject me directly or kill me if he wanted to get rid of me. I stepped forward until I was standing close enough that he would have to push me out of the way to escape. I didn't expect what he said when he finally did speak.

"Why?" He sounded completely confounded. I wanted to laugh, he looked so adorably tragic, but I contained myself.

"Because you're special."

He was still sitting, frozen, watching me, utterly perplexed. He was looking at my outfit and I suddenly realized how crazy I looked. I hadn't even changed from my ratty travel clothes before coming here. I was wearing old jeans and my filthy grey Converse and a terribly ironic Buffy The Vampire Slayer t-shirt. I didn't even like the show. It had been Alice's. There was a hole in the shoulder and a small bleach stain on the hem that I nervously covered with my hand. The good thing about this was that only a person who actually loved me would be moved by a demonstration like this from me looking the way I did.

There was one more thing I could do. One last thing I hadn't given. I had given him my life and my body and now my heart. I was willing, finally, to give him my mind, a thing he'd wanted since the day we met. I held out my hand, palm down, fingers bent slightly.

"I'll let you see," I said. "I'll let you see everything."

He stared at my hand momentarily and then it seemed that the offer was enough because his face changed before me from confusion to relief and he rose slowly to stand in front of me. He placed his hands carefully on my face.

"Isabella," he said and my name sounded like a song the way he said it.

I wanted to kiss him but I waited. This was his home, I would let him direct what happened from here. I had done everything I could. He seemed content just to look at me for now.

"How did I live so long without seeing your face?" he said and I laughed silently, putting my hands on his chest.

Then he kissed me, his lips as familiar against mine as my own eyelashes brushing my cheek. I put my arms around him and felt that he was thin through his clothes. I didn't know vampires could lose weight. It pained me. I did this to him.

I don't know how long we stood there kissing or how long we would have gone on doing it if the sound of a throat being cleared hadn't interrupted the quiet in the room. I turned my head and saw that there was a small group of men now standing in the room. They wore cloaks and each one had a Volturi crest around his neck. I turned my head back around so they couldn't see me and pressed my lips together, suppressing crazed laughter. I saw Aro smile just for a second, his hands still resting lightly on my face.

"I'm sorry, gentlemen," he said, "I'm afraid I'm a bit occupied today. Sulpicia, I am sure, will be happy to help you with whatever you need." He took my hand and led me down the steps and straight through the crowd. A few of them looked amused, one rolled his eyes and at least one looked completely furious. Aro didn't look at any of them. He looked only at me, holding me close by his side.

Sulpicia was floating up the hallway toward the doors like she had planned and timed this all perfectly. Maybe she had. I realized I didn't know if she had any special powers. She exuded an aura of magic. She and Aro kissed each other on the cheek. There was a sweetness between them that was almost uncomfortable to witness it seemed so private. But I saw what he meant now about her thinking him a pet. She was smiling at him indulgently, looking at us both like we were a painting she'd been working on for many months which she had just completed. She squeezed my arm, smiling at me a little mischievously. I was again taken in by the otherworldly softness of her skin. Aro had had sex with her? How did he survive it?

"Don't let him get away with anything, he's a total pushover."

Aro snorted sarcastically as she passed us. I watched her enter the room and stride comfortably to the dias, taking her place in the tall black chair regally. She settled the folds of her dress and then faced the men. She looked right up there. It seemed the Volturi had a new leader.

Aro was pulling me down a hallway, not toward the entrance. It was too near daylight, we couldn't leave yet.

"Where are we going?" I asked.

"To my rooms. I have things I'd like to take, you know, since I'm being kicked out of my own house," he said goodnaturedly.

"And kidnapped!" I added cheerily.

He stopped and pulled me to him, kissing me warmly.

"If only there was something we could do until nightfall," he said quietly.

"Might want to go somewhere more private," I said.

A tour group was staring at us open-mouthed. It seemed Sulpicia's meeting included lunch. I avoided their eyes as Aro led me past. I was beginning to accept that some things weren't my business and if I spent the rest of eternity trying to police the world, it would be a pretty miserable eternity.

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**END NOTES:** Not the last chapter! The box will be explained, I promise. How did you like that deus ex Sulpicia there? _Yeah_. I do love her though. This would have been so great if it had had a full edit. I always felt like there was something missing from this scene but it's gone now. They're in love, hooray! That's good enough.


	14. As You Wish

_AN~This chapter goes really Sunlight-y with lots and **lots** of talking. Thank you everyone for the lovely reviews. They've kept me going and given me laughs and made my days brighter. Especially all the Aro-being-an-asshole outrage. Those were hilarious.  
_

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**14**

When we were in his room finally, I only had a second to look around before he was kissing me again. More wantonly now that we were alone. Then he stopped and held my face again so he could look at me.

"Say it again," he said.

"What?"

"Tell me you love me."

"I love you, Aro."

He closed his eyes. I touched his face and he immediately placed his hand over mine and moved it so he could kiss my palm.

"I should have told you before," he said, his voice sad.

"No, it was my fault. All of this was my fault, I'm so sorry. I should have just left you alone back in Forks."

"But where would I be now? Stuck here with that fluffy new regime Sulpicia created?"

"It might not have been like that, if you had come back sooner . . ."

I wanted to feel really bad suddenly. I had caused so much pain I didn't feel like I should get away with it and get to be happy and loved now.

"And become a dictator," he said. "No, my life here ended on that field just as yours in Forks did. You thought you were talking me into something mad when you asked me to go with you but really I was relieved to not have to make a decision about what to do. I could delay it and just go along with this fascinating little creature who seemed to want me around for reasons I couldn't understand."

I was stunned. I hadn't been lying to Jacob only I didn't know it. I didn't honestly know he had been in the same place I was leaving Forks. I thought he was just having a weird adventure. I didn't know he was looking for a reason to run away as much as I was. I remembered what else Jacob had said about me being easy to fall in love with and I had to know when this had happened.

"Wow. So, when did you know that you were in love with me?"

"Who said I was in love with you? Sulpicia? She meddles so . . ."

I made a violent gesture toward him which he nimbly avoided and then swooped in and caught me around the waist, placing a kiss on my throat.

"When you said my name."

"What? Which time?"

"The first time," he said and then exhaled like he'd been holding his breath for a year.

When was he even talking about? I had no idea when I'd first said his name in front of him. It wasn't before the fight and it wasn't in Volterra. He smiled at me, a little embarrassed and I knew. It was in my room. When we were having sex on the floor during that rainstorm. I almost didn't believe him.

"You'd known me for like an hour!"

He just shrugged. "I know what I like." Then he smiled sort of shyly.

I was suddenly seeing an Aro I was pretty sure most of the people who knew him had never seen. He was far more vulnerable than I had ever imagined.

"But how did I not know . . .?"

"You didn't want to know."

I shook my head. I would have known.

"Didn't I do everything you asked of me just because you asked?"

I nodded slowly.

"Was I ever unkind to you?"

I shook my head. He'd been nothing but wonderful to me the entire time and I had just treated him like an object for me to move around and put down and pick up at my leisure.

Then I remembered Baltimore, that wonderful and terrible night when he'd demanded I orgasm repeatedly for him. It was the only time he'd acted even remotely mean to me. "There was Baltimore . . . "

He swallowed before trying to answer. He looked a little ill. "That was . . . terrible. I'm sorry, Isabella, I never meant to scare you."

"Why did you do it?"

"It was the night we found the woman and her child in that warehouse."

"Yes, I know, but—"

"He shot at you."

"So? I'm a vampire, bullets don't hurt me."

"And if you were a human, you would have died," he said. "For the first time I realized it was possible to lose you. Maybe you wouldn't die, but you certainly would get over this thing you were hiding from someday and then you would go away. Leave me behind and find a happy life somewhere new. I knew you were ashamed of me and that was part of the reason you didn't look for your friend and daughter. You didn't want them to see what you had done, who you were with."

"Aro—"

"I knew all of those things before of course but at that point I had thought maybe you were starting to see me differently. Then I saw that thing in your memories. And I realized I was stupid, you didn't love me and you never would, you were still just using me to kill you own pain."

I looked away, more ashamed than I had ever been about anything.

"So I tried treating you like you were treating me. But I couldn't do it. I loved you too much to hurt you and when I saw that I had made you feel afraid of me I hated myself. And I knew you could destroy me if you ever knew how I felt. I had to get you somewhere safe and leave as soon as possible. Then in New York I thought maybe I was wrong. You acted like you accepted me, wanted me for more than your selfish escapism. And when we got to Paris, you _seemed_ so happy—"

"I _was _happy—"

"—until Jacob found us and you practically ran from me. And told him you didn't even like me—" he looked sick.

"That's not what I said. And I thought you would attack each other. I stepped in front of you to protect you. I would have fought him myself if he tried to harm you."

His face changed at my words. Like I had applied salve to a burn but also ground salt into it first.

"I'm so sorry . . ." I was scared to hug him. Even though he had just told me he loved me I was so sickened with myself that I felt like he had to be as well and would shove me away if I tried it.

"When did you know?" he asked after a silence I was too afraid to break.

I thought about it for a minute but I already knew. "When we were swimming, in Seattle. I looked over and you were there, right beside me, happy to swim to the bottom of the sea with me just to give me what I wanted. I didn't know why you were doing it, I was just grateful. But I didn't admit it to myself until we got to Philadelphia."

"You like to draw things out . . ."

"I thought you were heartless," I admitted. "So I closed off."

"Only you could think someone who worships the ground you walk on is heartless," He sighed. "I did everything I could to make you love me. To make you see I wasn't 'evil.'"

"And I did see it! I just wasn't ready. I wasn't ashamed of you. I was ashamed of myself."

"That's over now," he said finally. And put his arms around me. "Say it again," he said and even though I couldn't see his face I knew he smiling.

"I've already told you like five times, are you going to be like this every day?"

"No. I promise. I've just been waiting a long time to hear it somewhere other than my dreams. I was sure I never would."

"You don't dream."

"Daydreams."

I saw again the teenage girl Aro vision and clenched my jaw to keep from laughing. I didn't want him to think I was laughing at him. His words were creating a wonderful pressure in my chest. Maybe it was my heart expanding like the Grinch. I had frowned on Christmas this year after all.

"Look at me," I said. He did. "Aro, I used you. It was wrong and I'm sorry. I'm going to stop apologizing because it won't mean anything after the fiftieth time but I need you to believe me right now when I say that I love you _insanely_ and even if I never have the chance to say it again, know that I will continue to love you for as long as I can imagine right now, okay?"

"Marry me then."

"You're already married. We both are."

"So we'll be Mormons! Just say yes."

"They don't do that anymore."

"I'll get a divorce!"

"You got married a billion years ago, I'm pretty sure it'll take a while to dig up that paperwork . . . . "

He exhaled through his nose and then grabbed my arm and led me from the room. We were headed back toward the throne room. Sulpicia's meeting had ended it seemed and the last of the men in cloaks were walking away, she was in the doorway when we approached. Aro was walking so fast I was having to run a little to keep up with him.

"Tell her," he demanded without preamble when we reached her.

"What are you talking about, Aro? I hope you're not already picking fights with this lovely girl who came all the way here just to see you," she said.

He grabbed her left arm and held it up in front of me. I shook my head at him, putting my hands up, silently communicating that I had no idea what he was talking about and that he was acting crazy.

"A ring, Isabella, do you see a ring?"

Oh. Sulpicia's hand was bare. He held up his own and it was the same.

"When was the last time you wore it?" he asked her.

"16, no, _15_40 or so . . . why are you—?" Then she looked at me and back at him. "Aro, you didn't. You're such a _girl. _She's been here less than an hour!"

"Would you just tell her we're far from married," he said impatiently.

"Bella," she said. It was weird to hear a person I hardly knew call me that. I barely heard the name at all anymore. Aro nearly always called me Isabella. Bella wasn't even a person I knew now. "Aro is not my husband anymore than," she gestured around vaguely, "that chair. If you would like to marry him, for some unknowable reason, I give you my blessing. I warn you though, he's _extremely_ annoying."

"I know," I said, taking his hand.

"Ech, gross, you're as bad as he is, is this what you were doing that whole time?"

Aro and I looked at each other and I said, "No, there was a lot more killing."

Aro made a short, crazed, giggling sound. She raised her eyebrows and then looked at Aro and said, "Just be glad you don't need to sleep, Dear." She was eyeing my t-shirt with confused amusement. She looked down at our hands again and snorted. "Well, get a good ring out of him, he's loaded, trust me."

"I don't care," I said, grinning stupidly at Aro.

She turned away, and I heard her say, "_God_, teenagers . . ."

She was really weird but I liked her. I laughed as she disappeared down the hallway.

"So, Sulpicia thinks you're a teenager?"

He sighed, looking put upon, "She always has . . ." Then he focused on me again. "I bet you hate weddings," he said, looking at me with his fingertips together up near his mouth.

"Yup. And I haven't even said 'yes' anyway . . ."

"What do I have to do?" He sounded so serious I really wondered exactly how far he would go.

"Hmm, I think you'd look really nice . . . with gold eyes."

His eyes, red and black now, went wide and he shook his head emphatically. "No. No, anything else."

"But, _that's_ what I want," I said, trying to look sweet and not like I was shamelessly manipulating him.

He swallowed and made a small gagging noise in the back of his throat. "All the time?"

"First, you agree to the contract, then we'll discuss the terms," I said formally. "And you know, if we're in the forest," I leaned forward to whisper, "We can hunt naked . . ."

He breathed in deeply, a little shakily. "If I do this, you'll marry me?" A truly bizarre mixture of hope and disgust on his face.

"Yes, fine. I'm marry you."

He grabbed me and kissed me. Only not on the mouth. He kissed my face everywhere but my mouth and my neck and every bit of skin he could reach around my clothing. It was ridiculous but Aro was all about overkill and I couldn't fault him for being who he was. Exuberant, childish, unbalanced, greedy, kind, vicious, sweet and for reasons I still couldn't understand, completely in love with me.

"Ug. I didn't want to get married at all, now I'm doing it _twice!_" I was so annoyed that I hit him in the arm as hard as I could.

His mouth came open in shock and he grabbed his arm. "Ow, you know, you're still kind of a newborn! Try not to kill me in one of your little tempers, please."

"You haven't seen my temper," I warned darkly and I was pleased to see he looked a little worried. "Still time to back out," I sang.

"Never. Go ahead and kill me."

"Wow. You _are_ a girl."

He looked dangerous for a second and then dived at me suddenly. He picked me up and threw me over his shoulder like we were in some stupid old movie and carried me back down the hallway to his room. He dropped me on a rug by a fireplace.

"What do you think you're doing? I'm not some silly damsel, you know."

"No, but apparently you've forgotten all the evidence that I am not, in fact, a girl so I thought I should remind you. Do you like this shirt?"

The change of direction confused me. "Uh, what? Not really, it's not even mine—" and then I gasped, shocked as he tore it cleanly down the back and pulled it away from me.

"You could have pulled it over my head just as easily!"

"Boring," he said and yanked at the front of my jeans, destroying the button and zipper simultaneously.

"What am I supposed to wear out of here . . ." I whispered.

"Oh, did I forget to tell you? Getting married to me means you're required to stay in this room, naked, for the next five years. All my wives have done it."

"All . . ."

"Calm down, you're still only the second. Or will be. And do you really think Sulpicia would let _me_ tell her to do anything? She thinks I'm an idiot."

"You _are_ an idiot," I said and kissed him before he could respond.

I found that there was still a timbre of lust to our attraction and with the additional electrifying element of finally confessed love, I thought there was a good chance we might not leave this room for five years anyway.

I hoped no one came down this corridor often because I had little control over how loud I was being. I was grateful his name was mostly vowels sounds because they climbed smoothly from my throat, blending easily into my moans. I don't know how long we stayed in there exactly and it didn't matter. After several extremely frenzied encounters, fueled by our separation, he led me away from the fire into another room with a bed in it.

"You must not think I'm very classy if you had a bed right here the whole time and you were making me lay on the floor . . ."

"You're not classy," he said and before I could hurt him he grabbed me around the waist and said, "You're a vicious wild animal. I like that."

I slapped him lightly on the cheek anyway. He grinned and said, "See? And you know I liked that, don't you? When you slapped me before in Forks. I wasn't sure what I was going to do until you did that and then the only obvious thing to do was to kiss you. I might have anyway even if you hadn't shared your extremely stimulating memories with me."

"Wow. That's really fucked up."

"Not to me. It was sexy that you were brave enough to hit me like that."

He was wearing a V-shaped pendant with a tiny crest in the middle of it around his neck. I assumed a new one since the chain looked intact. I put my hands around his neck and carefully undid the clasp. I wasn't ripping away his past and trying to obliterate it this time in an attempt to justify my actions by denying who he was. I was removing him from it with his permission and offering a new future. I placed the necklace in his hand and he looked at it for a moment before closing his fingers around it. I heard a faint crumpling noise and when he opened his fingers, there was only a misshapen clump of bronze-colored metal in his hand. He placed it in mine.

"_You_ own me now."

I examined the thing for a minute and said, "It's um . . . beautiful." The insincerity of my tone was pretty obvious.

"God, you _aren't_ classy."

I pushed him backwards onto the bed and straddled him, pinning his wrists like I had in the field that day. "I thought you liked it," I said, moving my hips against him.

He exhaled sharply. "I do."

"Do you want me to slap you again?"

"Yes."

"I don't know if I can. I like you now after all."

"Would you like me to say something mean?"

"I doubt you could. You're so completely obsessed with me. It's a little embarrassing."

"That's true. But I'm not embarrassed. I could gloat if you like. Would that be adequately irritating?"

"Maybe . . ."

"That first day here, when Felix was restraining Edward, I was imagining, in elaborate detail, exactly how I wanted to fuck you because I knew he could hear it and I kind of wanted to make him try to fight me so I could kill him myself."

It was such an extremely cruel thing for someone to do that it went past mean to ridiculous and was almost funny in an perverse way. I released one of his hands and hit him across the face but it wasn't very hard.

He laughed and arched his hips under me, making me gasp.

"Was that even true?"

"Does it matter?"

"It might."

"Okay I only pictured you naked. But you _were_ in my bed. With me."

"You're a pervy old man."

"You hardly have room to talk about pervyness, Miss Swan. With your constant masturbation activities . . ."

"It wasn't _constant_. It was like five times. Or ten . . . and a half."

"Keeping very close count. Pervy."

"Whatever. You said you liked that too."

"I do. I hope you'll do it again for me."

"So, did you . . . you know, _do_ anything after I left Volterra? I mean, since you said you thought about me naked. Or were you just doing it to piss off Edward?"

"Would you really want to know if I did?"

I didn't know. I made an apprehensive face and then nodded.

"Once."

"Restraint. Interesting. When?"

Now he looked reluctant to answer.

"Aro. I've told or shown you just about every dirty thing about me I can think of. It can't be that bad. Was it _right_ after we left or something?"

He sighed. "It was after we got the message informing us of your transformation. I could picture you as a vampire. You were spectacular even in my head. When I saw you in Forks, you looked even better than I thought you would. I'll admit my thoughts about you then were much less chaste than when you were here. I'm sure Edward heard that too but I wasn't trying to be obnoxious that time, they just rushed into my head all at once with no effort from me."

"So you _liked_ me," I said, drawing out the "like" into an obnoxious grade school taunt.

"Obviously. Do you think that I send opulent gifts to every random person who becomes a vampire?"

My necklace. It was hard to believe he'd been audacious enough to send that after he knew Edward heard him having naked thoughts about me.

"Well, that's sort of creepy now actually."

He just smiled. "'Sort of creepy' seems to be your favorite description for me anyway."

"Yeah, well, you earn it."

"You like it."

"I do kind of . . ."

"I thought of something mean to say."

"You really like me slapping you around . . . "

"I do, but I'll pace myself if you're not into it . . . "

"No, I think you've got some in the queue, you've been kind of a jackass for what I've been led to believe is several thousand years. Go ahead, it better be good though," I said skeptically but with a slight note of unease. He seemed so excited and smug about this I knew it could be really terrible.

"I bet you came harder just _thinking_ about me than you did while that pretty little husband of yours was actually fucking you."

I was stunned. I couldn't even hit him. It was true. It was wrong of him to say it but it was true. Some combination of confusing attraction and taboo had resulted in these kind of intense, violent, heart-stopping orgasms that literally robbed all my muscles of strength for a long time afterwards. I knew that there were different kinds of orgasms now so it wasn't to say I didn't have longer or even better ones with Edward but there was no question about his specific phrasing of "harder" because there wasn't any comparison.

He was looking slightly disappointed that he'd failed to earn a slap in the face but was watching my face intently. And then blurted, "It's true, isn't it!"

"You're kind of a fucking asshole, you know?"

"I know. And I trust you'll remind me should I ever forget."

"I hate you a little bit right now."

I regretted my words immediately when all the mirth left his face and he turned serious. "Please don't ever say that even if you're joking. Don't say you hate me, I believed you did for so long, hearing it from you . . . I can't. Please don't."

"I'm sorry, I don't hate you. I'm just, embarrassed I guess."

"I hope you'll get over that knowing how exciting it is for me think that I was involved somehow in giving you that level of pleasure before I ever touched you."

"You touched my hand. And my face."

"Cataloging every touch for your fantasies. And yet _I_ am the 'sort of creepy' one. I look forward to many years of preposterous inequality ahead."

"Oh, so you want equality? Then tell me what _you_ thought about that time you were alone." I was getting into this a little now. Being wanted was strangely powerful. Now I knew what he must have been feeling that day in Forks. After what I showed him he probably would have agreed to follow me around with a lot less begging than I thought was necessary.

"You know, we're just wasting time here when we could actually be doing whatever thing we wanted to each other," he said tilting his head and smiling very slightly.

"Nice try. No evading. Come on. Was it super dirty or something? I promise I won't judge you. Well, maybe a little bit if it's _really_ freaky."

He didn't answer for a long time. I was about to threaten him with violence to move things along when he spoke.

"We were kissing."

"And?"

"And nothing. We can't all be as imaginative as you, Isabella, with your elaborate fantasies about doing it with me in front of everyone you know."

"They weren't that elaborate. And I'm sorry. It's just . . . not what was expecting. Kind of sweet."

"I thought you would have caught on to the fact that I am utterly adorable by now. It's why I annoy Sulpicia so much. She likes that muscle-y, meat-headed, riding-a-horse-shirtless kind of guy. I managed to hide that fact that I am a 'sissy', as she says, from her for quite a while after we were married. But I've never been very good at pretend and I gave it up. I wasn't very convincing anyway."

"So why did you call _her_ new system 'fluffy'?"

"Because, she doesn't need to use fear to ensure respect. She has a talent for leadership that I didn't. She's smarter than me so she knows how to manipulate people without force. If only they knew how terrifying she really is . . . "

"Well, luckily for you, I like sissies."

"I know. You made that obvious when you chose Edward over that bulky werewolf boy who was mildly stalking you for a time."

Sometimes I forgot just how much he knew about my life from hearing the minds of many of the people close to me. This made me think of Alice suddenly and I wondered if she had had any visions about this. It was too sad to think about. I focused on the present.

"It's not very nice to insult my dead husband."

"Who said sissies have to be nice? And I hope you'll forgive me for this since you claim to love me so much but, I really could not care less about Edward. His actions as a vampire and his treatment of you were infuriating. And he wasted a very valuable gift by doing nothing at all useful with it." The exasperation in his voice was plain.

I was surprised to find this little speech didn't make me angry. He was right about most of it. It didn't mean I didn't love Edward, I had just accepted his flaws the same way I was accepting Aro's which many people would say were far more glaring.

"If you're trying to get me to slap you again, you're failing."

"That time I was just being honest. I'll settle for kissing."

"Well, now that I know you like it so much, maybe I can use it as leverage."

"I never should have told you that. That's the problem with living forever with a perfect memory. No one ever forgets anything and they can use that knowledge to torture you neverendingly."

"I won't," I said. "I promise. And I'll kiss you any time you like. I think I've already proven that."

"You know it wasn't the _kissing_, Isabella."

"It was the silence."

"Yes. Just the thought of _holding hands_ was exciting. Not so much sexually but just to be close, to feel someone's skin and hear nothing but the things they chose to say. It's very awkward to hear everything sometimes. It certainly was after Sulpicia stopped being interested in me."

I smiled at him sweetly and he said, "No. Do not pity me. This is why I didn't want to tell you. Can we be done with this now?"

"Yes," I said. "And I have some things I'd like to show you." I took both of his hands in mine.

"I promise I won't try to see more."

This was almost better than hearing, "I love you".

"Close you eyes," I said.

He did and I expanded my shield around us. I kept my eyes open so I could watch him react.

_We were in the woods, my back against a tree. It was misty and damp that day, his dark hair the most visible thing around. I was crying out with my head tilted back as he fucked me. My heart and mind were black and cold. I was just seeking a kind of living death. Using him. _

It made me feel slightly ill. His face looked tight and sad. I moved on quickly.

_We were in my room and I said his name, once when he entered me and again when I climaxed and heard the small noise he made afterwards. This was the moment when he claimed he'd fallen in love with me. And there was his face as we lay talking afterwards and I saw it, this slight flicker of sadness and amusement when I said he didn't love me. _

It was tragically funny. He was smiling now. This was probably a nice memory for him. I was glad I could show it to him, how good it had felt to be with him that day and how grateful I was he had agreed to stay with me.

_Next we were in the woods and I watched him gently drain that girl. And his face, glowing beautifully in the darkness as we left the trees. Me wondering how this man who had come to kill my daughter been so kind to this human child he didn't even know._

His hand tightened on mine.

_The taste of human blood in both of our mouths as we kissed after my first kill. The beginning of my time as a hunter of the damned. _

He smiled wickedly at this.

_Then the way he sometimes coaxed me into going slow when we had sex and how his sweetness terrified and repelled me because it threatened to expose my hidden feelings for him. _

"I thought you liked sissies," he said.

"Shhh."

_Then I was carrying a child over rooftops, I knew he wouldn't live but I raced anyway, like I was holding my own child in my arms. I felt like I was racing toward some invisible finish line, hoping I would get there in time to still be a good person for my daughter. _

He opened his eyes for a moment and I shook my head. He closed them.

_Then his sad face before he jumped from the window of our apartment and the split second hate there. Every day after we left Paris I saw that hate and believed it was for me. _

"Isabe—"

I shushed him again. I wasn't done.

_Us making love in Paris, me trying to fight down the urge to tell him I loved him and my joy when he said my name. _

He pulled me to him at this and I let him because he didn't open his eyes.

_Then us kissing in Paris before he left. His necklace grazing my back and the utter desolation it caused within me when I knew there was nothing I could do to make him stay. And my face covered in blood, the mess in the sink, and the box on the counter, untouched. _

"You can open your eyes now."

He did.

"You didn't open it did you?" he said heavily. "Where is it?"

"I threw it away."

"You threw—you are impossible. Why did you do that?" He sounded really upset.

"Because you just _left_ me. I didn't want some trinket. That wouldn't replace you, I had enough reminders in my head. So I threw it away," I said my speech starting harsh and ending soft.

"It was a _key_."

That wasn't what I was expecting. "What? To what?"

"To our place in Baltimore."

"Oh. You bought it?"

"Yes."

"When?"

"The week after we moved in . . ."

"You were planning on staying there weren't you?" I said incredulously.

"I think I thought that maybe if you had a home and you felt normal and safe again that you'd . . . see me as more than just the creepy guy you fucked. Eventually. I was going to suggest it to you before—well, I understand if you never want to go back but, it's yours if you want it."

"Of course I want it! Aro, that night was really bad in some ways but if it hadn't happened, we wouldn't be here now. I know it sounds awful, but seeing you upset was the thing that convinced me you weren't heartless and that maybe it wouldn't be the worst thing if I fell in love with you. Of course, I already was but I had blocked it out perfectly until that happened. After, when I let myself accept it, I loved you so much it was like dying a second time, like the feeling of vampire venom, changing every cell in my body. And then you left and I thought you hated me."

"But you still came here anyway? To warn me about Stefan and Vladimir? Why?" he sounded like I was hurting him.

"I couldn't think of anything happening to you, even if you hated me . . ."

He gave a pained sigh. "I should have told you. I'm so sorry. I'm a coward. I was going to, that night. At least I thought I was. When we got to Montmartre. And if you rejected me, I knew you had a home to go to . . ."

My heart ached at this news. We were so close. "Why would I want to go live somewhere that just reminded me of you after that, Aro?"

"I don't know, I just knew you loved it there. And that you would be safe."

"I loved it there with you. It was _ours,_ not mine. Everything was."

He kissed me then and there were no more words for a while. He sat up into a kneeling position on the bed, resting back on his ankles and pulled me into his lap. And this was the first time, finally, that we could look into each other's faces with unconcealed love and open acknowledgement of it as we performed this intimate act together that we had been abusing for so long. He lifted my hips up slightly to guide himself into me. And it felt new somehow. Like we'd never been together before. And in a way we hadn't. We were different people before. Finally we were us and I actually laughed because it was so perfect. He looked surprised and I quickly explained that I wasn't laughing at him.

"Say it again," he said. "I promise I won't ask anymore. I just want to hear you say it while I'm inside of you."

This request was so simultaneously vulgar and sweet that I didn't know how to respond except to simply honor it.

"I love you," I said and this time saying it seemed to pierce something inside of me and I couldn't stop, as though all of the times I should have said it and didn't were pouring out from the place I had stored them. I repeated it until all the words ran together but I didn't stop. Then he kissed me just as I was saying the word "you" so that I whispered it into his mouth as though I was placing the essence of my feelings onto his tongue where he could taste their sincerity and truly believe that I did love him and always would.

We came together, our sighs and sounds complementing each other, our mouths close, not kissing, just barely touching, sharing air we didn't need.

"Please, marry me," he said again before I even had a chance to recover.

"You don't even have a last name."

"So, did you want to change yours anyway?"

"No."

"Perfect then."

"It might be nice if Renesmee and Jacob were there. They are my only people left."

He stiffened at the mention of Renesmee.

"She's a strange child. I think she'll understand," I said soothingly.

"Strange, yes. Where are we going to live? The place in Baltimore was barely big enough for us . . . "

"I don't know, we'll work it out," I said. I was feeling remarkably unconcerned about all of it.

"I don't fit into your life."

"You _are_ my life, you idiot."

"I hope that's not a lasting endearment."

"Only if you're being an idiot. Jacob has already accepted it, us I mean, not you being an idiot, and like I said, Renesmee is strange, I think she will be okay."

"A house with two vampires, a vampire-human child and a werewolf . . . " he said. "That's not . . . sane."

"Yeah, well, we're not sane. Come away with me, Evil Vampire King."

"As you wish, my love."

~FIN~

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**END NOTES:** Last chapter! Oh, but there's an epilogue! And a sequel but don't hope on that too much because it's unfinished and I am currently swiftly sliding into a crippling bipolar depression and I doubt I will be doing much of anything for the next few weeks other than watching bad TV. However, the end of the sequel _is_ written and I love it so much that it may drive me to finish someday. So cross your fingers halfway. Like just hold them next to each other or something. Like that district 12 salute in Hunger Games. Only with two fingers.

I _am_ going to post some other stories (also not edited very heavily) including a Carlisle/Bella one shot in this same series (an after battle what-if) as well as at least one insanely dirty Aro/Bella PWP one shot if anyone is interested in that. One of them is a scene that happens between this story and the sequel and is nothing but shameless smut.

* * *

Also, this line is the cockiest damned thing I've ever written for Aro:

_"I bet you came harder just **thinking** about me than you did while that pretty little husband of yours was actually fucking you."_

The one-shots have a lot more extreme Aro dirty talk in them. Because I delight in making him say filthy things. He's just so . . . _proper._


	15. Enchanted Sleep

**15  
**

It was only a few weeks later when we encountered Vladimir and Stefan for the first time. We had settled in a two story house in the south of France near a small town called Montolieu.

The two ancient vampires spotted us thirty miles from home on the outskirts of Carcassonne, just below the walls of the castle that overlooks the city. They chased us and we ran them around for nearly an hour until finally landing on the peak of a high roof. They halted below us, looking up and attempting to appear smug even though they had no advantage.

"Come down, Aro. Come fight, it's time for you to face your mistakes and pay for them," Vladimir called.

Aro smiled at him condescendingly. "I think not."

"You would hide behind a woman's shield, Aro?" Stefan said tauntingly.

"She, is the most dangerous creature in a hundred miles, I think it's wisdom rather than cowardice that keeps me at her side. Indeed, it would be more dangerous to run from her. She'd track me down," he said this last part to me before kissing me possessively.

I heard them snarl below us, pacing. My shield surrounded us like a soap bubble but infinitely stronger. He ended our kiss and looked down, smiling again at their fury.

"What exactly do you want?"

"Your head!"

"Vengeance!"

They both shouted at once. I didn't know who said what but it didn't matter. They wouldn't get either.

"Well, you can't have my head, I'm afraid. It already belongs to her and she's a little selfish with it. As for revenge, I'm not sure what would be sufficient for you. You could burn down Volturi castle but as it isn't mine anymore, that would be a bit silly. I suppose you could go and ask Sulpicia for something. She's always been more resourceful than me. And I know she needs some new guard members . . ."

They hissed and spat at us. "We would never work for the Volturi filth!" Stefan shrieked, enraged.

"Then I'm afraid I have nothing to offer you," Aro said, his face stone now. He was getting bored with their antics.

"Ah, but you have things you care about," Vladimir said eyeing me.

Aro's arm tightened around me minutely.

"Try it," he said. His voice was quiet, controlled, I had never seen him look as terrifying. His eyes reminded me think of the Greek legend of Medusa who could turn you to stone with her gaze. They recoiled slightly.

"We can wait," Vladimir said. "We've been waiting a long time, we can out wait this latest . . . fascination of yours. We all know you get bored with anything but power so quickly. And when you do, we'll be waiting for a good fight. _No shields_." He flicked his eyes at me. They disappeared. I wasn't sure what had just happened but they appeared to have decided to leave us alone.

I was about to turn, ready to go home but Aro held me fast. He was looking at me oddly, his eyes as soft now as they had been ugly a moment before.

"Isabella," he said, tracing my jaw with his fingertips. "I love you."

It was the first time he had said it in a week because he'd gotten so annoying I had forbidden him to say it until I gave him permission again.

I didn't punish him for it. "See, _that_ was a perfect time for it. Pick you moments."

He smiled at me and we kissed with a full moon looking down on us, it was brighter here, larger, away from the lights of a big, modern city.

A shadow had hung over me since the day I met Edward Cullen. Trouble around every corner but at last, things were right, good.

I was happy.

Aro loved me.

I'd thought I only had one great love.

I would always love Edward but Aro was my future.

A part of me wondered if he always had been.

Maybe it was supposed to end this way.

I couldn't quite believe the Cullens all dying was necessary but I felt at home with Aro in a way I never had with anyone else. I never had to pretend to be anything with him. I was just as I was and he accepted it and I didn't ever feel like I often did with Edward that he was somehow too good for me. That I wasn't graceful enough or pretty enough. There was none of that. Aro was my equal.

He turned and had me jump on his back. He liked to carry me and I enjoyed the feeling of clinging to him as he dashed lithely through the city and then out into the country and home. The sound of wind in the grass and my face pressed to his neck made me feel dreamy and safe.

"I love you, too," I said. The sound should have been lost in the wind but he squeezed my leg to acknowledge that he'd heard me.

I smiled and buried my face in his hair, inhaling deeply. He smelled the same as always. Only not to me like sin now, but like heaven.

* * *

**Epilogue**

We lived in Montotlieu for three years and then moved to the States so that Renesmee could experience her homeland while she was still sort of a child. Her growth had slowed as she approached puberty, opposite of a human child. Now I knew why the other half-vampire had said seven years when it seemed like she was growing so much faster. She looked about thirteen when she first started to draw interested looks on the street. Ones that were quickly stifled if either Jacob or Aro were with us. They were equally terrifying when it came to watching over her.

As I had guessed, she accepted Aro more readily than anyone expected. It was a year before Jacob would even consent to have a conversation with him although I often saw him watching us before that with a small, amused smile on his face as we laughed and argued. We did both often and usually simultaneously. We rarely had a straight-faced fight.

We moved to Oregon first, it was rainy like Washington so we could go out in the daytime and it was less likely we would seen by anyone we knew there. However, the weather moved fast from rain to sunshine and we had been trapped, more than once in stores and in the forest near our home, waiting for dark or the rain to come back so we could leave.

Renesmee and Aro had a relationship I didn't understand. Aside from having conversations in multiple languages, some I had never even heard before, she would sometimes put her hand on his cheek for a moment and then they would laugh at some private joke. Too often, they looked at me when this happened and I had the distinct feeling they were making fun of me. On one occasion, after witnessing this exchange, Jacob smugly observed my glaring and said, "Sucks to be the outsider, doesn't it, Bella?" I pushed him off the short rock wall we were sitting on and smiled as I listened to him crash through an embankment of trees all the way to the beach below.

I thought I would be with Edward forever. And that didn't happen. So I didn't think about forever with Aro. I just loved him every day we were together and believed that if he ever didn't love me anymore or needed to leave, I wouldn't force him to stay with me. I now knew why Sulpicia had been willing to let him go. It would have been criminal to cage him. I loved him too much to do that to him. I loved him enough that I would say goodbye if it was best for him. That was real love. I loved him more than I did myself. I couldn't say if I had loved Edward that way. I only remember wanting to keep him against all odds. It had killed him ultimately and I wouldn't make that mistake again.

We returned, alone, to our place in Baltimore a few times a year. It always hurt to leave but we knew we could come back any time. Aro had bought the whole building. The old lady who ran the bakery, who had looked at us warily when we stayed there the first time, upon seeing our rings, on our first visit back, suddenly became _extremely_ friendly and started bringing us "extra" cookies she baked "by accident." It was adorable and completely tragic that we could not eat them. We gave them away to homeless shelters. She pestered us about babies and said that she wouldn't mind the noise at all. We knew that she was mostly deaf based on the fact that she never complained about the noise we made while having sex. We had to be fairly tame at home so when we went on our getaways, it was a little taste of what our lives had been like before. We knew she didn't hear us because she definitely wouldn't have been as nice as she was if she'd heard me screaming "fuck" all the time with varying degrees of clarity. Even he was loud. I missed his silence sometimes but knowing how much he loved being with me was satisfying in its own right. When I asked about why he was so quiet before he said it was because he was afraid that if he allowed himself to make a noise he would accidentally tell me he loved me while we were having sex.

At home we had a cat. It was a wedding present from Sulpicia. Aro hated cats violently and apparently she knew it. I could practically hear her laughter echoing around the throne room as she gave the order to have it sent to us. I liked her a lot and we visited every few years for months at a time when Renesmee was a little older. Aro insisted on wearing red contacts the first time but she saw through them immediately. They were just too orange with the gold underneath. She didn't mock him though and I was proud of her for that. Aro wanted to get rid of the cat but Renesmee, of course, fell in love with him immediately and named him "Notch" for reasons known only to her before picking him up and carrying him away like a furry baby.

"What does she need a cat for? She already _has_ a dog," he said, sourly.

"That beast _never_ comes upstairs, Renesmee!" he yelled after her. "Hair . . . everywhere," he said wiping at his clothes like there already was. Afterwards, he complained that the sound of _three_ heartbeats in the house was "deafening" and made it impossible to think, like Notch's tiny heart, which sounded like someone tapping lightly on the lid of a coffee can, made any difference at all. He just felt outnumbered by living things and he wasn't used to it. But he didn't force Renesmee to give him up because he was completely under her spell and although she knew this, she wisely did not abuse it. Still, it was only my severe intervention that stopped him from turning her into the most spoiled little princess in the world.

He wasn't her father but they were friends and I was sure that whatever connection they had would continue even when she no longer lived with us. I still heard him remark on her strange gift occasionally with awe and a little jealousy, I thought. It was obvious how much he loved her and it was this that made Jacob finally stop being so cold.

We were a family, not the kind I ever expected to have but few of the best things in my life were things I could have possibly expected. My human life hadn't ended entirely when I became a vampire like it did for other vampires. I still saw my father and lived in my hometown. And it hadn't ended when I left Forks after the battle either. For me, it really felt as though my human life didn't end until we settled together in that little French town and my life as a vampire truly began. That was when I started to forget things and people and the pain of my old life dulled and became less real. Edward had once told me that the clearest memory most vampires have of their human life was the pain of their transformation. But it wasn't like that for me. For me, my clearest memory was stepping forward to give Aro my hand on the day we met. The clearest sensation wasn't pain, but the cool softness of his hands closing over mine carefully. The clearest feeling was that lovely, enchanted sleep I fell under that day and will probably, happily, never wake from.

* * *

**END END NOTES:** Aw, _now_ it's over. But never fear because unlike _Sunlight,_ this story has a sequel and as soon as I finish my current project I will get back to working on the draft for it. Thank you for reading, thank you for reviewing. It's a pleasure to write for you.

Edit: I forgot to mention that in my story, Bella's shield offers a small amount of physical protection as well as psychic so that's why Stefan and Vladimir, who are familiar with her ability, didn't attempt to attack them.

* * *

Gorron: I'm so sorry to hear you've been having a difficult time. Although, it's really wonderful to hear that my writing has been something that's helped you feel a little bit better sometimes. There is no comment more meaningful than that for me. I hope you feel better and I have more stories on the way for you so don't go away! And you should absolutely write something. I need things to read too, you know . . .


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